A note on biharmonic functions on the Thurston geometries (Q1641869)

Let \((M^n, g)\) be a smooth Riemannian \(n\)-manifold. By complexifying the tangent bundle \(TM\) of \(M\) to \(T^{\mathbb C}M\) and extending the metric \(g\) to a complex-bilinear form on \(T^{\mathbb C}M\), the gradient \(\nabla f\) of a complex-valued function \(f : M \to {\mathbb C}\) can be considered as a section of \(T^{\mathbb C}M\). In this situation, the Laplace-Beltrami operator \(\Delta\) on \((M, g)\) is given by \(\Delta f = \text{div}(\nabla f)\). We say a complex-valued function \(f : (M, g) \to {\mathbb C}\) is \(r\)-harmonic if \(\Delta^r (f) = \Delta(\Delta^{r-1} (f)) = 0\), and proper \(r\)-harmonic or polyharmonic of order \(r\) if \(\Delta^r (f) = 0\) and \(\Delta^{r-1} (f) \) does not vanish identically. The harmonic functions are exactly \(1\)-harmonic, and the biharmonic functions are the \(2\)-harmonic ones. Recently, the author and and \textit{A. Ratto} [J. Math. Anal. Appl. 458, No. 1, 849--859 (2018; Zbl 1377.53083)] and the author in [Differ. Geom. Appl. 53, 137--147 (2017; Zbl 1380.58011)] constructed new explicit local biharmonic functions on the compact Lie groups \(\mathbf{SU}(n)\), \(\mathbf{SO}(n)\) and \(\mathbf {Sp}(n)\). This gives local solutions on the \(3\)-dimensional round sphere \({\mathbb S}^3\cong\mathbf{SU}(n)\) and the standard hyperbolic space \({\mathbb H}^3\) via a general duality principle. Note that the classical Riemannian manifolds \({\mathbb R}^3\), \({\mathbb S}^3\) and \({\mathbb H}^3\) of constant curvature are all on Thurston's celebrated list of \(3\)-dimensional model geometries. In this paper, the author constructs new explicit proper biharmonic functions on \(\mathbf{Sol}, \mathbf{Nil},\widetilde{\mathbf{SL}}_2({\mathbb R}), {\mathbb H}^2 \times {\mathbb R}\) and \({\mathbb S}^2 \times {\mathbb R}\) which are the other members of Thurston's \(3\)-dimensional geometries. For example, in coordinates \((x, y, t)\) on \(\mathbf{Sol}\) with the metric \(ds^2 = e^{2t}dx^2 + e^{-2t}dy^2 + dt^2\), the function \[ f_a(x,y,t) = (a_1 + a_2 x + a_3y +a_4 xy) \] with \(a = (a_1, a_2, a_3, a_4) \in {\mathbb C}^4 -\{ 0\}\) is harmonic, and the following product \[ F_r(x,y,t):= t^{2r}f_a(x,y,t) + t^{2r+1}f_b(x,y,t) \] with non-zero \(a, b \in {\mathbb C}^4\) is shown to be proper \(r\)-harmonic for each natural number \(r\). In other cases of \(\mathbf{Nil}, \widetilde{\mathbf{SL}}_2({\mathbb R}), {\mathbb H}^2 \times {\mathbb R}\) and \({\mathbb S}^2 \times {\mathbb R}\), the author also gives various explicit proper biharmonic functions.