A characterization of the Khavinson-Shapiro conjecture via Fischer operators (Q334907)

It is well known that the Dirichlet problem for an ellipsoid with polynomial boundary data yields a polynomial solution. Khavinson and Shapiro conjectured that ellipsoids are the only bounded domains with this property, which we denote by (KS). In an earlier paper [Duke Math. J. 142, No. 2, 313--352 (2008; Zbl 1140.31004)], the author verified this conjecture for a large class of domains in \(\mathbb{R}^{d}\). In the present paper he shows that, under a mild restriction on \(\Omega \), the property (KS) holds for \(\Omega \) if and only if there is a non-constant polynomial \(\psi \) such that \(\partial \Omega \subset \psi ^{-1}(\{0\})\) and the mapping \(F_{\psi }:\mathbb{R}[x]\rightarrow \mathbb{R}[x]\) defined by \(F_{\psi }(q)=\Delta (\psi q)\) is surjective. This offers a potential route towards establishing the Khavinson-Shapiro conjecture in greater generality.