Holomorphic and \({\mathcal M}\)-harmonic functions with finite Dirichlet integral on the unit ball of \(\mathbb{C}^n\) (Q5954266)

Let \(B\) be the unit ball in \(\mathbb C^n\) equipped with the Bergman metric and denote by \(\widetilde\Delta, \widetilde\nabla\) and \(\tau\) the corresponding Laplace-Beltrami operator, gradient and volume element. For \(\gamma\geq 0\) the set \[ \mathcal D_\gamma=\left\{ f\in C^1(B): \|f\|_{\mathcal D_\gamma} := |f(0)|+ (D_\gamma(f))^{1/2} < \infty \right\} \] is the weighted Dirichlet space of real or complex \(C^1(B)\)-functions where \[ D_\gamma(f) := \int_B (1-|z|^2)^\gamma |\widetilde\nabla f(z)|^2 \tau dz \] is the \(\gamma\)-weighted (invariant) Dirichlet integral. A function \(f\in C^2(B)\) is \(\mathcal M\)-harmonic if \(\widetilde\Delta f = 0\) (replaced by the usual surface averaging condition if \(f\not\in C^2(B)\)). The aim of the paper is to find \(\mathcal M\)-harmonic majorants for \(|f|^{2n/\gamma}\) where \(f\in\mathcal D_\gamma\) is a solution of the eigenvalue problem \(\widetilde \Delta f = \lambda f\) for \(\lambda \geq 0\). For \(n=1\) and the (Euclidean) unit disk such a result is due to \textit{S. Yamashita} [Ill. J. Math. 25, 626-631 (1981; Zbl 0466.31002)]. It turns out that for \(n\geq 2\), \(\gamma\leq n\) the problem \(\widetilde\Delta f = \lambda f\) has only non-trivial solutions if \(\lambda = 0\), i.e., the original problem makes only sense for \(\mathcal M\)-harmonic functions and, in particular, holomorphic functions \(\mathcal H(B)\) on \(B\). Moreover, it is shown that \(\mathcal{D}_\gamma \cap \mathcal{H}(B)\) is nontrivial if, and only if, \(\gamma > n-1\). The main result of the paper is an embedding result for \(\mathcal{D}_\gamma\) and the Hardy spaces \(h^p\) or \(H^p\) of \(\mathcal M\)-harmonic or holomorphic functions on \(B\). (Recall that \(|f|^p\), \(f\in \mathcal H(B)\), has an \(\mathcal M\)-harmonic majorant if and only if \(f\in H^p\).) The theorem states that (a) For some \(\gamma \in (n-1,n]\) the continuous embedding \(\mathcal H(B) \cap \mathcal D_\gamma \subset H^p\) holds for all \(p\in (0,2n/\gamma]\) and, conversely, that (b) For some \(p\in (0,2]\) the continuous embedding \(H^p \subset \mathcal D_\gamma\) holds for all \(\gamma\geq 2n/p\). A similar version is true for the scale \(h^p\). The proof relies on characterizations of the spaces \(h^p\) and \(H^p\) through Riesz measures for \(|f|^p\) and an inequality of \textit{M. Pavlović} [Indag. Math., New Ser. 2, 89-98 (1991; Zbl 0731.32003)] estimating (gradients) of eigenfunctions of \(\widetilde\Delta\) in terms of certain spatial means. Concrete (counter-)examples are given to show that the above embeddings are sharp. For holomorphic functions the integral \(D_\gamma(f)\) converges only if \(\gamma>n-1\). This restriction can be overcome by substituting the power series expansion of \(f\) into \(D_\gamma(\cdot)\) which leads to a series representation of \(D_\gamma\) and a characterization of the Dirichlet space \(\mathcal{D}_\gamma \cap \mathcal{H}(B)\) as (weighted) sequence space. This representation is even valid for \(\gamma > -1\). If we denote the so modified Dirichlet space by \(\widetilde{\mathcal D}_\gamma\), the main result of the paper carries over to this situation and shows that \(\widetilde{\mathcal D}_\gamma \subset H^{2n/\gamma}\) for all \(0<\gamma\leq n\) in the sense of continuous embeddings. The paper ends with a brief discussion of the case \(n=1\), where several classical results are recovered, and a comparison with Yamashita's theorem.