Hearing pseudoconvexity in Lipschitz domains with holes via \({\bar{\partial }}\) (Q1686799)

The theme of this article is to relate properties of \(\overline{\partial}\) on a domain with a hole to the pseudoconvexity of the hole and of the domain with the hole filled in. Namely, suppose that \(\Omega = \widetilde\Omega \setminus \overline{D}\), where \(\widetilde\Omega\) is a bounded domain in \(\mathbb{C}^n\) with connected complement, and \(D\) is a relatively compact open subset of \(\widetilde\Omega\) with connected complement. The authors characterize pseudoconvexity of the two sets \(\widetilde\Omega\) and \(D\) via the Dolbeault cohomology groups of \(\Omega\) for various function spaces (\(L^2\), Sobolev spaces, \(C^\infty\), \(C^\infty\) up to the boundary, extendable distributions). One of the main theorems states that if \(D\) has class \(C^2\) boundary and \(\widetilde\Omega\) has Lipschitz boundary, then \(D\) and \(\widetilde\Omega\) are pseudoconvex if and only if the \(L^2\)-Dolbeault cohomology group \(H^{0,q}(\Omega)\) vanishes when \(1\leq q\leq n-2\) and is Hausdorff when \(q=n-1\). The interpretation in terms of the spectrum of the \(\overline{\partial}\)-Neumann Laplacian of \(\Omega\) on \((0,q)\)-forms is that \(D\) and \(\widetilde\Omega\) are pseudoconvex if and only if \(0\) is outside the spectrum when \(1\leq q\leq n-2\) and \(n\geq 3\), or \(0\) is not a limit point of the spectrum when \(1=q\) and \(n=2\). The theory extends to domains in Stein manifolds, and the article contains many other interesting results. \textit{S. Trapani} [Ann. Mat. Pura Appl. (4) 144, 391--401 (1986; Zbl 0618.32009); Pac. J. Math. 134, No. 1, 179--196 (1988; Zbl 0619.32011)] did some related work using different methods.