Generalized Cranston-McConnell inequalities and Martin boundaries of unbounded domains (Q2565377)

The authors investigate the Martin boundary of certain bounded and unbounded domains. First they give a purely analytic proof of a generalization of the following inequality of Cranston and McConnell \[ {1\over u(x)} \int_DG(x,y)u (y)dy<c |D|, \] where \(D\) is some domain in \(\mathbb{R}^2\) with Green function \(G\) and \(u\) is a positive harmonic function. This generalization is applied to prove the main result of the paper: Consider a domain \(D\) in \(\mathbb{R}^2_+ =\{(r,s): r>0\}\) which is regular in the sense of potential theory and a Lipschitz domain \(E\) in \(S^{N-1}\). For \((x,s)\in \mathbb{R}^{N+1}= \mathbb{R}^N\times \mathbb{R}\) introduce cylinder coordinates \((|x|\cdot\omega,s) =:(|x|, s,\omega)\), \(\omega\in S^{N-1}\) and identify \(\mathbb{R}^{N+1} \backslash \{|x|=0\} =\mathbb{R}^2_+ \times S^{N-1}\) in this way. Let \(\Omega= D\times E\) be the set in \(\mathbb{R}^{N+1}\) obtained by rotating \(D\) around the \(s\)-axis using angles given by \(E\). If the set \(D\) is small enough near the \(s\)-axis and at infinity in the sense that \({1\over r^2}\) is integrable over \(D\) then the Martin compactification \(\Omega^*\) of \(\Omega\) is completely determined by the Martin compactification \(D^*\) of \(D\), namely \(\Omega^*\) is homeomorphic to \(D^*\times \overline E\), and moreover minimality of the Martin boundary points of \(D\) implies the same for \(\Omega\). This result is applied to special domains \(D\) of the form \(\{(r,s): b(r)<s <a(r)\}\), where \(a\) and \(b\) are Lipschitz functions and the Martin compactification is explicitly known. In the case of an unbounded domain \(D\) and if the smallness condition on \(D\) now stated in terms of the difference \(a(r)-b(r)\) is satisfied, \(\Omega^*\) is homeomorphic to \((D\cup \{\infty\}) \times \overline E\), generalizing a result of Ioffe and Pinsky. In the case that \(D\) touches the origin and again \(a(r)- b(r)\) is sufficiently small for small \(r\) one has \(\Omega^*\) is homeomorphic to \(\overline D\times \overline E\) generalizing examples of Martin and Maz'ya.