On competing definitions for the Diederich-Fornæss index (Q2081432)

A domain \(\Omega\subset \mathbb{C}^n\) is pseudoconvex if it admits a smooth, bounded, strictly plurisubharmonic exhaustion function. If \(\delta_{\Omega}(z)\) denotes the distance to the boundary, Oka proved this is equivalent to the condition\newline \[ -\log \delta_{\Omega} \text{ is plurisubharmonic on }\Omega. \] As \(z\) approaches the boundary \(b\Omega\) this necessarily approaches infinity. Bounded plurisubharmonic exhaustion functions can be particularly useful. When \(\Omega\) is bounded with \(C^2\) boundary, Diederich and Fornaess proved that there exists an exponent \(0<\eta<1\) along with a \(C^2\) defining function \(\rho_{\eta}\) for \(\Omega\) with the property that \(-(-\rho_\eta)^\eta\) is strictly plurisubharmonic on \(\Omega\). This serves as a bounded (strictly) plurisubharmonic exhaustion function. For a given bounded domain \(\Omega\) the supremum of these values \(\eta\) is called the Diederich-Fornaess index. In the paper here reviewed this index is referred to as the strong Diederich-Fornaess index. In this paper competing definitions of the original Diederich-Fornaess index are studied. The weak Diederich-Fornaess index is defined as follows. Let \(\Omega\) be a bounded pseudoconvex domain. The weak Diederich-Fornaess, denoted by \(DF_w(\Omega)\), is defined as the supremum of all exponents \(0<\eta<1\) such that there exists an upper semi-continuous plurisubharmonic function \(\lambda_\eta\) on \(\Omega\) satisfying \[ -c(\delta_\Omega)^\eta \leq \lambda_\eta \leq -(\delta_\Omega)^\eta \] for some \(c>1\). If no such function exists, then \(DF_w(\Omega)=0\). If \(\mathcal{F}(\overline{\Omega})\) is a family of functions on \(\overline{\Omega}\) that are at least upper semi-continuous, \(D_{\mathcal{F}}(\Omega)\) is defined as the supremum of all exponents \(0<\eta<1\) such that there exists a function \(\rho_\eta\in \mathcal{F}(\overline{\Omega})\) for which \[ -c\delta_\Omega \leq \rho_\eta \leq -\delta_\Omega \] on \(\overline{\Omega}\) for some \(c>1\), and such that \(-(-\rho_\eta)^\eta\) is plurisubharmonic on \(\Omega\). As before, \(DF_{\mathcal{F}}(\Omega)=0\) when no such function exists. Using this terminology, the original Diederich-Fornaess result would be phrased as \(DF_{\mathcal{C}^2}(\Omega)>0\). This latter index is referred to as the strong Diederich-Fornaess index and denoted by \(DF_s(\Omega)\) in the paper. The main result of the paper is that if \(\Omega\subset\mathbb{C}^n\) is a bounded pseudoconvex domain, then \(DF_{\Lambda^1}(\Omega)=DF_w(\Omega)\). Here \(\Lambda^1(\Omega)\) is the Lipschitz space. Furthermore if the boundary is \(C^k\) for some \(k\geq 2\), then \(DF_{C^k}(\Omega)=DF_{C^2}(\Omega)\). The question of whether \(DF_w(\Omega)=DF_s(\Omega)\) remains open. Some estimates below for the strong Diederich-Fornaess index \(DF_s(\Omega)=DF_{C^2}(\Omega)\) are also given. The proofs make use of a technique for patching together plurisubharmonic functions without sacraficing regularity and a strengthening of a result of Richberg on the boundary regularity of \(\lambda_\eta\).