Critical points and geometric properties of Green's functions on open surfaces (Q2350652)

Let \(M\) be a noncompact surface without boundary of class \(C^{\infty}\), endowed with smooth complete Riemannian metric \(g\), and let \(\mathcal{G}:(M\times M)-\mathrm{diag}(M\times M)\longrightarrow\mathbb{R}\) be a Green's function of \(M\), which is defined as a symmetric function that satisfies the Laplacian equation: \(\Delta_{g}\mathcal{G}(.,y)=-\delta_{y}\) for each \(y\in M\). In this paper, the authors analyse the integral curves of the gradient of the Green's function with a fix pole as a tool to study the connections between the Green's function and the geometry of \(M\). Through this analysis of the integral curves, they find a natural decomposition of the surface as the union of a disk and a \(1\)-skeleton that encodes the topology of \(M\) and leads to a topological upper bound for the number of critical points of the Green's function and a complete description of the local and global structure of the integral curves of \(\Delta_{g}\mathcal{G}\). Also they discuss connections with the conformal structure of the surface.