English

On ratios of harmonic functions

Analysis of PDEs 2015-03-10 v2 Classical Analysis and ODEs

Abstract

Let uu and vv be harmonic in ΩRn \Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^n functions with the same zero set ZZ. We show that the ratio ff of such functions is always well-defined and is real analytic. Moreover it satisfies the maximum and minimum principles. For n=3n=3 we also prove the Harnack inequality and the gradient estimate for the ratios of harmonic functions, namely supKfCinfKf&supKfCinfKf{ \sup\limits_{K} |f| \leq C \inf\limits_{K}| f| \quad \& \quad \sup\limits_{K} |\nabla f| \leq C \inf\limits_{K}| f| } for any compact subset KK of Ω\Omega, where the constant CC depends on KK, ZZ, Ω\Omega only. In dimension two the first inequality follows from the boundary Harnack principle and the second from the gradient estimate recently obtained by Mangoubi. It is an open question whether these inequalities remain true in higher dimensions (n4n \geq 4).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1402.2888,
  title  = {On ratios of harmonic functions},
  author = {Alexander Logunov and Eugenia Malinnikova},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1402.2888},
  year   = {2015}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T03:06:56.073Z