Uniform approximation by \(\square _b\)-harmonic functions (Q2431209)

The aim of this paper is to present an analogue of the Mergelyan and Ahlfors-Beurling estimates for the Cauchy transform, which give quantitative information on the uniform approximation by rational functions with poles off a compact subset \(K\) of \(\mathbb C\). The analogous result is an estimate for the Henkin integral transform on the unit sphere in \(\mathbb C^2\), and, as a corollary,, it is used to study the approximation by functions that are locally harmonic with respect to the Kohn Laplacian \(\square _b\). The findings are: \[ \int_{K}|H(z,\zeta)|d\sigma(\zeta)\leq C\sigma(K)^{\frac{1}{4}}, \] where \(\sigma\) is the usual Lebesgue measure on the unit sphere in \(\mathbb C^{2}\), \(K\) is any compact subset of the unit sphere, \(C\) is some constant and \(H(\zeta, z)=\frac{\langle (\bar z_{2},- \bar z_{1}),\zeta\rangle}{|1-\langle\zeta,z\rangle|^{2}}\) is the corresponding Henkin kernel. The constant \(\frac{1}{4}\) is the best possible. From this, it follows that the distance between a smooth function on the unit sphere and the space of uniform closures of \(\square _b\)-harmonic functions in a neighborhood of \(K\) in the unit sphere is estimated by a constant times the measure of the set \(K\) to the power \(\frac{1}{4}\), times the norm of the standard tangential Cauchy-Riemann operator taken on the function on \(K\). From this, it follows that, when the measure of the set \(K\) is zero, then the aforementioned distance is zero and hence the function belongs to the space. This is an analogue of the Hartogs-Rosenthal approximation theorem. It would be of interest to obtain such estimates in more general situations for example in \(\mathbb C^{n}\).