Khavinson's gradient-direction conjecture for bounded harmonic functions

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Let h∞h^{\infty} denote the space of bounded harmonic functions on the unit ball Bn:={x∈Rn:∣x∣<1}\mathbb{B}^n:=\{x\in\mathbb{R}^n:|x|<1\}. For x∈Bnx\in\mathbb{B}^n and l∈Sn−1l\in\mathbb{S}^{n-1}, let C(x,l)C(x,l) be the best constant such that

∣⟨∇u(x),l⟩∣≤C(x,l)sup⁡∣y∣<1∣u(y)∣|\langle\nabla u(x),l\rangle|\leq C(x,l)\sup_{|y|<1}|u(y)|

for every u∈h∞u\in h^{\infty}, and let C(x)C(x) be the best constant such that

∣∇u(x)∣≤C(x)sup⁡∣y∣<1∣u(y)∣.|\nabla u(x)|\leq C(x)\sup_{|y|<1}|u(y)|.

For x≠0x\ne 0, define the radial unit vector nx=x∣x∣n_x=\frac{x}{|x|}. Khavinson's conjecture. For every x∈Bn∖{0}x\in\mathbb{B}^n\setminus\{0\},

C(x)=C(x,nx).C(x)=C(x,n_x).

Khavinson's conjecture asserts that the direction of the radial derivative gives the sharp constant for the modulus of the gradient of a bounded harmonic function in the unit ball. The paper presents a proof of the conjecture, so the conjecture is resolved.

References

Primary source

Petar Melentijević, “A proof of the Khavinson conjecture”, arXiv:1903.04564 (2019).

Additional references

2 papers in this index state this conjecture (2015–2019). The statement above is taken from the most recent of them; the others are arXiv:1508.00125.

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