On removable singularities of locally solvable differential operators (Q5961448)

This work deals with the following question: assume that \(L(X,D)\) is a complex vector field defined on an open subset \(\Omega\) of Euclidean space, \(F\subset \Omega\) is a closed set and \(u\) is a function defined in \(\Omega\) that satisfies the equation \(Lu=0\) in \(\Omega\setminus F\); when can we conclude that the equation \(Lu= 0\) is actually satisfied throughout \(\Omega\)? The starting point is a classical result for bounded holomorphic functions of one complex variable which can be traced back to the theorem of Riemann stating that a bounded holomorphic function defined in an open set \(\Omega\) from which a point has been omitted, can be holomorphically extended to all of \(\Omega\); in other words, a point is a removable singularity for any bounded holomorphic function. Almost fifty years ago, Ahlfors considered the problem of determining which sets of the plane could also be removed as well and this led him to introduce the notion of analytic capacity. It turns out that a compact set \(K\) is removable if and only if its capacity \(\gamma(K)\) vanishes. The work of Harvey and Polking introduced a notion of capacity of a set associated to any differential operator \(P(x,D)\) defined on an open set \(\Omega\) and to any Banach space \(B\subset{\mathcal D}'(\Omega)\) that becomes a multiple of the analytic capacity of the set if one takes \(B=L^\infty (\mathbb{C})\) and \(P(x,D)= \overline{\partial}\). They used this notion to give necessary and sufficient conditions for the removability of sets with respect to a wide class of constant coefficient operators, including elliptic and parabolic operators. In spite of its success, this notion of capacity is mainly focused on operators with constant coefficients and does not reflect, in general, the local behavior of a removable set. It is not a local property and the capacity of a set \(K\) may be affected by perturbations of \(\Omega\) away from \(K\). In this work the definition of capacity is adapted to deal with local problems, and used to characterize removable sets for homogeneous solutions of vector fields that satisfy the Nirenberg-Treves condition. A byproduct of the proof is a geometric characterization in terms of orbits in the sense of Sussmann.