Boundary Harnack principle for symmetric stable processes (Q1961216)

Various potential-theoretic properties of symmetric \(\alpha\)-stable processes are established. First a boundary Harnack principle and Hölder continuity for quotients of \(\alpha\)-harmonic functions on open sets which are ``fat'' (given \(\kappa\in (0,1)\), an open set \(D\) is called \textsl{\(\kappa\)-fat} if for every sufficiently small \(r>0\) and every boundary point \(z\) the intersection \(D\cap B(z,r)\) contains a ball of radius \(\kappa r\)). Then it is shown that for fat sets both the Martin boundary and the minimal Martin boundary can be identified with the Euclidean boundary \(\partial D\). Next intrinsic ultracontractivity of the Feynman-Kac semigroup for symmetric stable processes perturbed by a Kato function (with respect to \(\|\cdot\|^{n-\alpha}\)) is extended to open sets on which the distance to the boundary \(\partial D\) satisfies a certain integrability condition on \(D\) (which e.g.\ holds if the boundary can be represented locally as a graph of a Hölder continuous function). Finally, it is noted that the proofs given in [J. Funct. Anal. 150, 204-239 (1997; Zbl 0886.60072)] for a \(3G\)-theorem and a conditional gauge theorem are valid for fat sets as well.