Properties of superharmonic functions satisfying nonlinear inequalities in nonsmooth domains (Q616643)

Let \(\Omega \) be a bounded uniform domain in \(\mathbb{R}^{n}\) (\(n\geq 3\)), or a bounded NTA domain in \(\mathbb{R}^{2}\), and let \(\delta _{\Omega }(x)\) denote the distance from a point \(x\) in \(\Omega \) to the boundary. This paper is concerned with positive superharmonic functions \(u\) on \(\Omega \) which satisfy the inequality \(-\Delta u\leq c\delta _{\Omega }^{-\alpha}u^{p}\). Here \(c>0\), \(\alpha \geq 0\) and \(p>1\), and \(\alpha ,p\) are subject to bounds that depend on the geometry of \(\Omega \). In the case of smooth domains these bounds are given by \(p\leq (n+1)/(n-1)\) and \(\alpha \leq n+1-p(n-1)\). The author shows that, in several respects, such functions behave somewhat like positive harmonic functions on \(\Omega \). For example, Harnack-type inequalities are established. Another example is that, if \(u\) and \(v\) are two such functions, then \(u/v\) has a finite non-tangential limit almost everywhere on \(\partial \Omega \) with respect to the measure associated with the greatest harmonic minorant of \(v\) in its Martin representation. (The Martin boundary of a bounded uniform domain is homeomorphic to its Euclidean boundary.) Note: The author has advised that, to be consistent with the overall assumption in the paper that \(\alpha \geq 0\), the formulation of Theorem 4.1 should say that, if \(1<p<(n+\tau )/(n+\tau -2)\) and \(0\leq \alpha <n+\tau-p(n+\tau -2)\), then (4.2) holds; moreover, if \(i(\tau )>0\), then (4.2) holds when \(1<p\leq (n+\tau )/(n+\tau -2)\) and \(0\leq \alpha \leq n+\tau-p(n+\tau -2)\).