Extended Harnack inequalities with exceptional sets and a boundary Harnack principle

Abstract

Harnack’s inequality is one of the most fundamental inequalities for positive harmonic functions and has been extended to positive solutions of general elliptic equations and parabolic equations. This article gives a different generalization; namely, we generalize Harnack chains rather than equations. More precisely, we allow a small exceptional set and yet obtain a similar Harnack inequality. The size of an exceptional set is measured by capacity. The results are new even for classical harmonic functions. Our extended Harnack inequality includes information about the boundary behavior of positive harmonic functions. It yields a boundary Harnack principle for a very nasty domain whose boundary is given locally by the graph of a function with modulus of continuity worse than Holder continuity.