Harmonic functions on manifolds whose large spheres are small (Q502752)

In this paper, the growth of a harmonic function \(h\) on a complete Riemannian manifold \(M\) is investigated. It is proved that if the scaled Poincaré inequality is satisfied and if the diameter of the geodesic spheres grows sub-linearly with the radius, then any harmonic function \(h:M\to\mathbb{R}\) with \(\lim_{R\to+\infty}\frac1{R}\log\int_{B(R)}h^2d\mathrm{ vol}\cdot\mathrm{diam }\partial B(R/4)=0\) is constant. This generalises results by A. Kasue that guarantee that a harmonic function with a polynomial growth is constant. These results also imply that the Riesz transform \(R:=d\Delta^{-1/2}:L^2(M)\to L^2(T^*M)\) is a bounded operator.