Three spheres theorem for harmonic functions (Q1587181)

Let \(B_{x,r}\subset \mathbb{R}^n\) denote the ball with center at \(x\) and radius \(r\). Let \(B=B_{0,1}\), the unit ball, and let \(S_{x,r}= \partial B_{x, r}\) and \(S=\partial B\). Two balls, \(B_{x,r}\) and \(B_{\overline x,\overline r}\) are called correlated (over \(B)\) if the centers are co-directed (i.e., either \(|x||\overline x|=0\) or \(x=\lambda \overline x\), \(\lambda> 0)\) and \((1-|x|^2-r^2) |\overline x|=|x|(1+ |\overline x|- r^2)\). We say that \(S_{x,r}\) and \(S_{\overline x, \overline r}\) are correlated (over \(S)\) if the balls \(B_{x,r}\) and \(B_{\overline x, \overline r}\) are correlated (over \(B)\). Let \(a=\gamma x\), \(\gamma >0\), be a point satisfying the equation \({|a|^2+1 \over|a|}= {1+|x |^2-r^2 \over|x|}\). Let \(ds\) denote the element of \((n-1)\) dimensional volume, and let \[ ds_a(y)= {|y-a|^2+1 -|y|^2 \over |y-a|^4} ds(y). \] The authors present a version of the three spheres theorem for functions harmonic in \(B\). Specifically, they prove that if \(S_{x, r}\) and \(S_{\overline x,\overline r}\) are correlated spheres over \(S\), \(n \geq 2\), with \(x\in B\), \(x\neq 0\), \(0<r<1-|x|\), \(|\overline x|\leq |x|\), and \(a\) as above, and if \(f\in h^2(B)\), then \[ \overline r \int_{S_{\overline x,\overline r}}|f|^2 ds_a\leq \left(r\int_{S_{x,r}} |f|^2 ds_a\right)^\beta \left(\int_S|f|^2 ds_a\right)^{1-\beta} \] for \(\beta\in (0,\alpha]\) where \(\alpha\) is given by the equation \({1-|a||\overline x|\over \overline r}= \left({1-|a||x|\over r}\right)^\alpha\).