Uniqueness conjecture for subcritical nonlinear boundary problems on the ball

Let n3n\geq 3, let Bn\mathbb{B}^{n} be the unit ball with boundary Sn1\mathbb{S}^{n-1}, and let uC(Bn)u\in C^{\infty}(\overline{\mathbb{B}^{n}}) be positive. Consider

Δu=0on Bn,uν+au=uqon Sn1.\Delta u=0\quad\text{on }\mathbb{B}^{n},\qquad \frac{\partial u}{\partial\nu}+au=u^{q}\quad\text{on }\mathbb{S}^{n-1}.

Uniqueness conjecture. If 1<q<n/(n2)1<q<n/(n-2) and 0<a1/(q1)0<a\leq 1/(q-1), then uu is constant.

If true, this uniqueness result would yield the sharp subcritical inequality discussed in the paper; taking qq up to the critical exponent would also give the critical case. The cited general formulation on manifolds with nonnegative Ricci curvature and sufficiently convex boundary is recorded separately below.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Qianqiao Guo and Xiaodong Wang, “Uniqueness results for positive harmonic functions on B^n satisfying a nonlinear boundary condition”, arXiv:1912.05568 (2019).

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