The Diederich-Fornæss index. I: For domains of non-trivial index (Q2319888)

Let \(\Omega\subset\mathbb C^n\) be a bounded pseudoconvex domain with smooth boundary. In the first part of the paper the author defines an analogue of the Diederich-Fornæss index for \(\partial\Omega\) and proves that it coincides with the global Diederich-Fornæss index for \(\Omega\). For \(\beta\frac\pi2\) let \(\Omega_\beta\) stand for the worm domain \(\{(z,w)\in\mathbb C^2: |z+e^{i\log|w|^2}|^21-\eta(\log|w|^2)\}\), where \(\eta:\mathbb R\longrightarrow[0,+\infty)\) is a fixed smooth convex even function with \(\eta^{-1}(0)=[-\beta+\frac\pi2,\beta-\frac\pi2]\), such that there exists an \(a0\) with \(\eta(x)-1\) if \(|x|a\), and \(\eta'(x)\neq0\) if \(\eta(x)=1\). In the second part of the paper the author proves that for \(\Omega_\beta\) the Diederich-Fornæss index equals \(\frac\pi{2\beta}\) (it seems to be the first non-trivial precise formula for the Diederich-Fornæss index).