\(m\)-subharmonic and \(m\)-plurisubharmonic functions: on two problems of Sadullaev (Q6173839)

The paper deals with several generalizations of the notion of plurisubharmonic functions. There are two natural candidates. The first one is the notion of \(p\)-plurisubharmonic functions, i.e., those whose restrictions to any complex \(p\)-plane are subharmonic. The standard plurisubharmonic function corresponds to the case where \(p=1\). The second candidate is the notion of \(m\)-subharmonic functions defined in terms of mixed Monge-Ampère operators: a \(C^2\) function \(u\) is \(m\)-subharmonic on an open subset \(\Omega\) in \(\mathbb{C}^n\) if \((i \partial \bar \partial u)^j \wedge (i\partial \bar \partial |z|^2)^{n-j}\) is a positive form, for every \(1 \le j \le m\). It was known that \(m\)-subharmonicity implies \((n-m-1)\)-plurisubharmonicity. The first result in the paper shows that the converse is not true. Secondly the author proves that if an integral comparison principle holds for \(p\)-plurisubharmonic functions, then \(p\) must be equal to 1 or \(n\) (this means such a principle only holds for the complex Monge-Ampère operators or Laplacian). These two main results answer a previous question posed by Sadullaev.