Limits Along Parallel Lines and the Classical Fine Topology (Q4948564)

The authors investigate the behaviour of in particular superharmonic functions along vertical lines in halfspace and give several results of existence of limits along these lines in terms of fine topology. The first result generalizes a result of G. C. Evans to higher dimensional cases concerning continuity of finely continuous functions, in particular of superharmonic functions, along straight lines. More precisely, for a finely continuous function \(f\) in \({\mathbb R}^n\) there exists an exceptional set \(E\subset {\mathbb R}^{n-1} \times \{0\}\), which is polar in \({\mathbb R}^n\) such that \(f\) is continuous along every line vertical to \({\mathbb R}^{n-1}\) which does not hit \(E\). This is achieved by a comparison of the cluster points of the values of \(f\) along vertical lines and cluster points of \(f\) w.r.t. the fine topology at a given point \(x\in {\mathbb R}^n\). The second topic of the paper deals with the maximal growth behaviour of superharmonic functions in \({\mathbb R}^n\) along lines vertical to \({\mathbb R}^{n-1}\). It was known that for \(n>2\) a superharmonic function \(u(X',x)\), \(X'\in {\mathbb R}^{n-1}\), \(x\in {\mathbb R}\) can have a growth such that \(x^{-1} \log u^+(X',x) \rightarrow \infty\) for \(x\rightarrow \infty\) for a set of values \(X'\in {\mathbb R}^{n-1}\) which is not of first category. Here the authors give a full characterization again in terms of fine topology. Namely, the superharmonic function \(u(X',x)\) can have an arbitarily strong growth for \(x\rightarrow \infty\) exactly for all \(X'\) in a set \(E'\in{\mathbb R}^{n-1}\) which is of first fine category in \({\mathbb R}^{n-1}\), that is of first category but with the usual Euclidean topology replaced by fine topology. In particular in the case \(n=2\), since on \({\mathbb R}^1\) Euclidean and fine topology coincide, the known result for the growth of superharmonic functions by Armitage and Nelson is recovered. Moreover, an analogous result is obtained for harmonic functions stating that an arbitrary growth along vertical lines is possible if \(X'\) is in an exceptional set \(E'\in {\mathbb R}^{n-1}\) of the following mixed type: \(E'\) is a countable union of Euclidean closures of sets with empty fine interior. A similar result is obtained for vertical limits on the hyperplane \({\mathbb R}^{n-1}\), i.e. \(x\rightarrow 0\), and also a characterization of all points on the hyperplane, where vertical limits equal to \(\infty\) may occur, is given in terms of fine topology. The article closes with a brief discussion of the different notions of first category w.r.t. Euclidean and fine topology used in the paper.