Submanifolds that are level sets of solutions to a second-order elliptic PDE (Q2450798)

The paper deals with the problem of characterizing which noncompact hypersurfaces in \(\mathbb R^n\) can be regular level sets of a harmonic function modulo a \(C^\infty\)-diffeomorphism. The authors obtain a sufficient condition which shows, in particular, that any nonsingular algebraic hypersurface whose connected components are all noncompact can be transformed onto a union of components of the zero set of a harmonic function via a diffeomorphism of \({\mathbb R}^n.\) The technique used combines robust but not explicit local constructions with appropriate global approximation theorems.