A characterization of complex manifolds biholomorphic to a circular domain (Q1074746)

The theorem in the paper gives a biholomorphic classification of complex manifolds M which admit exhaustion functions \(\tau\) of a particular type. If \(\tau\) maps \(M^ m\) to the interval (0,k), then it is required to be strictly parabolic on \(M-\tau^{-1}(0)\) (i.e. \(\tau\) is strictly plurisubharmonic but \((dd^ c\log \tau)^ m\equiv 0)\), to extend smoothly to the blow-up of any point \(p\in \tau^{-1}(0)\), and to satisfy an inequality \(C\| z\|^ 2\leq \tau (z)\leq K\| z\|^ 2\) near p. Under these circumstances, the theorem states that if \(k=\infty\), M is biholomorphic to \({\mathbb{C}}^ m\), and if \(k<\infty\) and the Monge-Ampère foliation is holomorphic, then M is biholomorphic to a bounded, strictly pseudoconvex, complete circular domain in \({\mathbb{C}}^ m\). The Monge-Ampère foliation is defined by the vector field X of type (1,0) such that \(i(X)dd^ c\tau ={\bar \partial}\tau.\) The methods used relate to those of Stoll, to whom the paper is dedicated, but also use the technique of taking the connected sum of two copies of M at \(p\in \tau^{-1}(0)\) in order to investigate regularity at the zero set of \(\tau\).