Liouville theorems for a general class of nonlocal operators (Q300449)

The authors consider distributional solutions to the equation \({\mathcal L}_\nu u+P(\nabla)u = 0\) in \({\mathbb R}^N\). \(P\) is a (complex) polynomial and \({\mathcal L}_\nu\) is nonlocal operator acting on functions \(\phi\in C_0^\infty({\mathbb R}^N)\) via the formula \[ [{\mathcal L}_\nu\phi] (x)= \int_{{\mathbb R}^N}(\phi(x)-\phi(x+y)-y\cdot\nabla\phi(x)1_{B}(y))\,d\nu(y),\qquad x \in {\mathbb R}^N, \] where \(B\) denotes the unit ball in \({\mathbb R}^N\), and \(\nu\) is a signed Radon measure on \({\mathbb R}^N \setminus \{0\}\). The fractional Laplacian \((-\Delta)^s, s\in (0,1)\) is a special case of \({\mathcal L}_\nu\). Sufficient conditions which guarantee that the solution is a polynomial, affine function or constant are obtained. The proofs are based on the analysis of the distributional support of the Fourier transform \(\widehat{u}\).