Oka domains in Euclidean spaces

Abstract

In this paper we find surprisingly small Oka domains in Euclidean spaces $\mathbb C^n$ of dimension $n>1$ at the very limit of what is possible. Under a mild geometric assumption on a closed unbounded convex set $E$ in $\mathbb C^n$ we show that $\mathbb C^n\setminus E$ is an Oka domain. In particular, there are Oka domains which are only slightly bigger than a halfspace, the latter being neither Oka nor hyperbolic. This gives families of smooth real hypersurfaces $\Sigma_t\subset \mathbb C^n$ $(t\in\mathbb R)$ dividing $\mathbb C^n$ in an unbounded hyperbolic domain and an Oka domain such that at the threshold value $t=0$ the hypersurface $\Sigma_0$ is a hyperplane and the character of the two sides gets reversed. More generally, we show that if $E$ is a closed set in $\mathbb C^n$ for $n>1$ whose projective closure $\overline E\subset\mathbb C\mathbb P^n$ avoids a hyperplane $\Lambda\subset\mathbb C\mathbb P^n$ and is polynomially convex in $\mathbb C\mathbb P^n\setminus \Lambda\cong\mathbb C^n$, then $\mathbb C^n\setminus E$ is an Oka domain.