A dual characterization of the \(\mathcal C^1\) harmonic capacity and applications (Q974795)

The Lipschitz and \(C^{1}\) harmonic capacities in \(\mathbb{R}^{n}\), denoted by \(\kappa \) and \(\kappa _{c}\), respectively, were introduced by \textit{P. V. Paramonov} [Mat. Sb. 181, No. 10, 1341--1365 (1990; Zbl 0716.31004)]. He used them to describe the compact sets \(E\) for which any \(C^{1}\)-function that is harmonic on \(E^{\circ }\) can be approximated in the \(C^{1}\)-norm by functions that are harmonic on a neighbourhood of \(E\). These capacities can be viewed as generalizations to higher dimensions of the analytic and continuous analytic capacities, \(\gamma \) and \(\alpha \), respectively. This paper establishes a dual characterization of \(\kappa _{c}\) which is inspired by the classical description of \(\alpha \) in terms of the Garabedian function. Two applications are then given. The first shows that \(\kappa (E)=\kappa (\partial _{o}E)\) for any compact set \(E\), where \(\partial _{o}E\) denotes the boundary of the unbounded component of the complement of \(E\). The second answers a question of \textit{A. Volberg} [Calderón-Zygmund capacities and operators on nonhomogeneous spaces. CBMS Regional Conference Series in Mathematics 100. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (AMS), 167 p. (2003; Zbl 1053.42022)] by giving a lower bound for \(\kappa(\Gamma)\), where \(\Gamma \) is the graph of a continuous function.