Complex harmonic capacitors (Q7004616)

This article investigates the doubly connected condensers (also known as capacitors) in the setting of complex potential theory. If \(\Omega\) is a Jordan domain in the complex plane and \(F\subset\Omega\) is a continuum, a star-like-shaping of a capacitor \((\Omega, F)\) is a function \(H:\mathbb{C}\to \mathbb{C}\) such that (1) \(H\) is harmonic in the set \(\Delta=\Omega\setminus F\); (2) \(H\) is constant on \(F\), say \(H(F)=s\); (3) \(H(\partial \Omega)=\Gamma\) is a star-like continuum of center at \(s\); (4) \(H:\partial \Omega\to \Gamma\) is monotone.\N\NThe main result of the article establishes that the differential matrix of a star-like-shaping complex potential \(H :\Delta\to \mathbb{C}\) does not vanish at any point. As some examples included in the article suggest, the Jacobian determinant of \(H\) may be zero.