Hausdorff cohomology and Levi form (Q1089134)

The author continues the study of conditions which characterize open connected subsets D in a Stein manifold X such that the topology of \(H^ 1(D,{\mathcal O})\) is Hausdorff, begun in an earlier paper [Rend. Semin. Mat. Univ. Padova, 75, 25-37 (1986; Zbl 0598.32012)]. We describe the main result in the present paper. Suppose \(\dim_{{\mathbb{C}}}X=2\) and that \(D\subset \subset X\) has smooth boundary; denote by D' the union of D and of the compact connected components of X-D; and by L(x), \(x\in \partial D\), the Levi form of the boundary. If \(H^ 1(D,{\mathcal O})\) is Hausdorff, then L(x)\(\geq 0\) for \(x\in \partial D'\) and L(x)\(\leq 0\) for \(x\in \partial D-\partial D'\); conversely, if L(x)\(\geq 0\) for \(x\in \partial D'\) and \(L(x)<0\) for \(x\in \partial D-\partial D'\), then \(H^ 1(D,{\mathcal O})\) is Hausdorff. An example is given to show that in the second part the condition \(L(x)<0\) can not be weakened to L(x)\(\leq 0\) for \(x\in \partial D-\partial D'\).