Boundary behavior of the Kobayashi-Royden metric in smooth pseudoconvex domains (Q2276085)

The authors discuss the problem of the boundary behavior of the Kobayashi-Royden metric in the normal direction in smooth bounded pseudoconvex domains. One of the results states in particular that the Kobayashi-Royden metric in the normal direction in some class of smooth bounded pseudoconvex domains is estimated from below by such expressions as \(1/d_D^{7/8}(z)\), where \(d_D(z)\) denotes the distance of \(z\) from the boundary of \(D\). This improves the result of \textit{S. Fu} [Complex Var. Elliptic Equ. 54, No. 3--4, 303--316 (2009; Zbl 1166.32011)], where the author obtained a lower estimate with the exponent \(5/6\). On the other hand, the authors demonstrate that a careful study of an example \textit{J. E. Fornaess} and \textit{L. Lee} [Math. Z. 261, No. 2, 399--408 (2009; Zbl 1162.32006)] shows that the optimal exponent in the lower estimate of the Kobayashi-Royden metric in the normal direction is smaller than 1 (for \(\mathcal C^k\)-smoothness, \(k<\infty\)). The authors also specify some obstacles for the rate of increase in the \(\mathcal C^{\infty}\) case.