Absolute Continuity Of Harmonic Measure Research Articles

Square function estimates, the BMO Dirichlet problem, and absolute continuity of harmonic measure on lower-dimensional sets

In the recent work [DFM1, DFM2] G. David, J. Feneuil, and the first author have launched a program devoted to an analogue of harmonic measure for lower-dimensional sets. A relevant class of partial differential equations, analogous to the class of elliptic PDEs in the classical context, is given by linear degenerate equations with the degeneracy suitably depending on the distance to the boundary. The present paper continues this line of research and focuses on the criteria of quantitative absolute continuity of the newly defined harmonic measure with respect to the Hausdorff measure, $\omega\in A_\infty(\sigma)$, in terms of solvability of boundary value problems. The authors establish, in particular, square function estimates and solvability of the Dirichlet problem in BMO for domains with lower-dimensional boundaries under the underlying assumption $\omega\in A_\infty(\sigma)$. More generally, it is proved that in all domains with Ahlfors regular boundaries the BMO solvability of the Dirichlet problem is necessary and sufficient for the absolute continuity of the harmonic measure.

Quantitative Absolute Continuity of Harmonic Measure and the Dirichlet Problem: A Survey of Recent Progress

It is a well-known folklore result that quantitative, scale invariant absolute continuity (more precisely, the weak-A∞ property) of harmonic measure with respect to surface measure, on the bound¬ary of an open set Ω ⊂ ℝn+1 with Ahlfors-David regular boundary, is equivalent to the solvability of the Dirichlet problem in Ω, with data in Lp(∂ Ω) for some p < ∞. Drawing an analogy to the famous Wiener criterion, which characterizes the domains in which the classical Dirichlet problem, with contin¬uous boundary data, can be solved, one may seek to characterize the open sets for which Lp solvability holds, thus allowing for singular boundary data. It has been known for some time that absolute continuity of harmonic measure is closely tied to rectifiability properties of ∂ Ω, but also that rectifiability alone is not sufficient to guarantee absolute continuity. In this note, we survey recent progress in this area, culminating in a geometric charac¬terization of the weak-A∞ property, and hence of solvability of the Lp Dirichlet problem for some finite p. This characterization, obtained under rather optimal background hypotheses, follows from a combination of the present author’s joint work with Martell, and the work of Azzam, Mourgoglou and Tolsa.

Absolute continuity of harmonic measure for domains with lower regular boundaries

We study absolute continuity of harmonic measure with respect to surface measure on domains Ω that have large complements. We show that if Γ⊂Rd+1 is Ahlfors d-regular and splits Rd+1 into two NTA domains, then ωΩ≪Hd on Γ∩∂Ω. This result is a natural generalization of a result of Wu in [49].We also prove that almost every point in Γ∩∂Ω is a cone point if Γ is a Lipschitz graph. Combining these results and a result from [8], we characterize sets of absolute continuity (with finite Hd-measure if d>1) for domains with large complements both in terms of the cone point condition and in terms of the rectifiable structure of the boundary. Even in the plane, this extends the results of McMillan in [38] and Pommerenke in [43], which were only known for simply connected planar domains.Finally, we also show our first result holds for elliptic measure associated with real second order divergence form elliptic operators with a mild assumption on the gradient of the matrix.

Tangent measures and absolute continuity of harmonic measure

We show that for uniform domains $\\Omega\\subseteq \\mathbb R^{d+1}$ whose boundaries satisfy a certain nondegeneracy condition that harmonic measure cannot be mutually absolutely continuous with respect to $\\alpha$-dimensional Hausdorff measure unless $\\alpha\\leq d$. We employ a lemma that shows that, at almost every non-degenerate point, we may find a tangent measure of harmonic measure whose support is the boundary of yet another uniform domain whose harmonic measure resembles the tangent measure.

BMO Solvability and Absolute Continuity of Harmonic Measure

We show that for a uniformly elliptic divergence form operator $L$, defined in an open set $\Omega$ with Ahlfors-David regular boundary, BMO-solvability implies scale invariant quantitative absolute continuity (the weak-$A_\infty$ property) of elliptic-harmonic measure with respect to surface measure on $\partial \Omega$. We do not impose any connectivity hypothesis, qualitative or quantitative; in particular, we do not assume the Harnack Chain condition, even within individual connected components of $\Omega$. In this generality, our results are new even for the Laplacian. Moreover, we obtain a converse, under the additional assumption that $\Omega$ satisfies an interior Corkscrew condition, in the special case that $L$ is the Laplacian.

Uniform rectifiability, Carleson measure estimates, and approximation of harmonic functions

Let $E\subset \mathbb{R}^{n+1}$, $n\ge 2$, be a uniformly rectifiable set of dimension $n$. Then bounded harmonic functions in $\Omega:= \mathbb{R}^{n+1}\setminus E$ satisfy Carleson measure estimates, and are "$\varepsilon$-approximable". Our results may be viewed as generalized versions of the classical F. and M. Riesz theorem, since the estimates that we prove are equivalent, in more topologically friendly settings, to quantitative mutual absolute continuity of harmonic measure, and surface measure.

Uniform rectifiability and harmonic measure, II: Poisson kernels in Lp imply uniform rectifiability

We present the converse to a higher dimensional, scale-invariant version of a classical theorem of F. and M. Riesz. More precisely, for $n\geq 2$, for an ADR domain $\Omega\subset \re^{n+1}$ which satisfies the Harnack Chain condition plus an interior (but not exterior) Corkscrew condition, we show that absolute continuity of harmonic measure with respect to surface measure on $\partial\Omega$, with scale invariant higher integrability of the Poisson kernel, is sufficient to imply uniformly rectifiable of $\partial\Omega$.

Null sets of harmonic measure on NTA domains: Lipschitz approximation revisited

We show the David-Jerison construction of big pieces of Lipschitz graphs inside a corkscrew domain does not require its surface measure be upper Ahlfors regular. Thus we can study absolute continuity of harmonic measure and surface measure on NTA domains of locally finite perimeter using Lipschitz approximations. A partial analogue of the F. and M. Riesz Theorem for simply connected planar domains is obtained for NTA domains in space. As a consequence every Wolff snowflake has infinite surface measure.