A long \(\mathbb{C}^2\) without holomorphic functions (Q505929)

A ``long \(\mathbb C ^n\)'' is a complex manifold which is an increasing union of domains biholomorphic to \(\mathbb C ^n\). Such a manifold is not, in general, biholomorphic to \(\mathbb C ^n\), by a result of \textit{E. F. Wold} [Ark. Mat. 48, No. 1, 207--210 (2010; Zbl 1189.32004)]. In the present paper a stronger statement is proven: for any dimension greater than \(1\) there exists a long \(\mathbb C ^n\) which does not admit non-constant holomorphic or plurisubharmonic functions. The authors also show that there is a continuum of domains of this type which are pairwise non-biholomorphic and which have nontrivial holomorphic automorphisms. For the proofs they introduce holomorphic invariants of complex manifolds called stable core and strongly stable core. The stable core is the set of points admitting compact neighborhoods with the \textit{stable hull property}. A compact set \(K\) has this property if there exists an increasing sequence of compact sets, starting with \(K\), and exhausting the manifold, for which the sequence of holomorphic hulls stabilizes. A compact set \(K\), which is regular (the closure of its interior), is a strongly stable core if it has the stable hull property and is maximal of this kind in the sense that no compact \(E\) with nonempty \((\mathrm{int}\, E)\setminus K\) has the stable hull property. Then for every regular compact polynomially convex \(K\) there exists a long \(\mathbb C ^n\), which does not admit non-constant holomorphic or plurisubharmonic functions, and whose strongly stable core is exactly \(K\).