Solvability of the Poisson-Dirichlet problem in domains with boundaries of mixed dimension

Abstract

We extend several characterizations of the $L^p$-solvability of the homogeneous Dirichlet problem to (possibly degenerate) elliptic operators $L=-\textrm{div}(wA\nabla)$ defined on a large class of open sets $Ω$ in $\mathbb{R}^n$. This framework encompasses not only uniformly elliptic operators in Lipschitz domains, but also Caffarelli-Sylvestre-type operators, and boundaries $\partialΩ$ that are not $(n-1)$-dimensional, for instance. We prove that, for $p\in (1,\infty)$, the $L^p$-solvability of the homogeneous Dirichlet problem is equivalent to the solvability of the Poisson-Dirichlet problem $Lu=wf-\textrm{div}(wF)$, \emph{i.e.} to the existence of a solution $u$ satisfying a $L^p$ non-tangential estimate whenever $f$ and $F$ belong to suitable weighted $L^p$ tent spaces. Furthermore, it is also equivalent to the solvability of the Poisson-Regularity problem for data in appropriate weighted $L^{p'}$ tent spaces, where estimates are obtained for $\nabla u$ rather than $u$.