Phragmén–Lindelöf theorems for a weakly elliptic equation with a nonlinear dynamical boundary condition

Abstract

We establish two Phragmén–Lindelöf theorems for a fully nonlinear elliptic equation. We consider a dynamical boundary condition that includes both spatial variable and time derivative terms. As a spatial term, we consider a non-linear Neumann-type operator with a strict monotonicity in the normal direction of the boundary on the spatial derivative term. Our first result is for an elliptic equation on an epigraph in $$\mathbb {R}^n$$ . Because we assume a good structural condition, which includes wide classes of elliptic equations as well as uniformly elliptic equations, we can benefit from the strong maximum principle. The second result is for an equation that is strictly elliptic in one direction. Because the strong maximum principle need not necessarily hold for such equations, we adopt the strategy often used to prove the weak maximum principle. Considering such equations on a slab we can approximate the viscosity subsolutions by functions that strictly satisfy the viscosity inequality, and then obtain a contradiction.