On harmonic functions on trees

A tree is a simply connected, locally finite, infinite graph. Some background will help the reader to place this paper within context. In the early seventies, \textit{P. Cartier} developed a theory of harmonic functions on trees [Symp. Math. 9, 203-270 (1972; Zbl 0283.31005)]]. Cartier was inspired by the analogy with the unit disc in the plane and motivated by the representation theory of matrix groups on local fields and the study of random walks on free groups (corresponding to homogeneous trees). He choose to avoid probabilistic language, yet many of his results admit immediate probabilistic interpretations. The analogy of trees with the unit disc can be used, on the one hand, as inspiration for formulating and proving new results in the setting of trees. On the other hand, since trees are discrete, they often appear without mention, being only implicit, for example, in the stopping time argument used in the Calderón-Zygmund decomposition. Indeed, of definite interest is the fact that this analogy can be somehow explained and seen as one of the interfaces between continuous and discrete structures, so that theorems in continuous context can be proved by reduction to the discrete setting of (possibly nonhomogeneous) trees. The link underlying this analogy is illustrated in the survey paper by \textit{C. Fefferman} [Studies in harmonic analysis, Proc. Conf., Chicago, 1974, MAA Stud. Math. 13, 38-75 (1976; Zbl 0339.30029)]. This link can traced back to R.E.A.C.\ Paley, as explained in the monograph of \textit{E. M. Stein} [Topics in harmonic analysis related to the Littlewood-Paley theory. Ann. Math. Stud. No. 63, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J. (1970; Zbl 0193.10502)]. The structure of this link can be found in Chapter 7, Section 8 of the monograph of \textit{J. L. Doob} on stochastic processes, in the setting of martingales relative to a filtration generated by a net over a given measure space [Stochastic processes. Reprint of the 1953 original (Zbl 0053.26802). Wiley Classics Library. Wiley, New York (1990; Zbl 0696.60003)]. A net is a sequence of nested, finite or countable decompositions of the given measure space. The inclusion relations between the pieces of the decompositions in the net are encoded in a tree and martingales relative to these filtrations can be identified with functions on this tree. These functions can be identified, via a simple linear transformation, with harmonic function in the sense of Cartier. One may recapture a version of the Lebesgue differentiation theorem over the given measure space (the prototype result in the study of boundary behaviour) without using delicate covering theorems and without requiring the measure to be doubling with respect to a metric. In many cases, a net can be explicitly constructed on the given space. On the other hand, \textit{M. Christ} has proved that on every space of homogeneous type there exists a quasi dyadic decomposition, i.e., a net whose pieces are (uniformly) comparable to balls whose radius decreases geometrically and where the measure is not concentrated too much near the boundary [Colloq. Math. 60/61, 601-628 (1990; Zbl 0758.42009)]. It follows that every space of homogeneous type can be represented as the boundary of a tree. This representation has made it possible to prove theorems in continuous contexts that could not be proved by other methods, for lack of a group suitably acting on the space. In this paper, the authors study the boundary behaviour of p-harmonic functions on homogeneous trees, inspired by results of \textit{J. Bourgain} on the unit disc [Duke Math. J. 69, 671-682 (1993; Zbl 0787.30020)]. Related results appear in the paper of \textit{R. Kaufman} and \textit{J.-M. Wu} [Ann. Probab. 28, 1138-1148 (2000)].

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