The Dirichlet problem for a non-commutative elliptic operator in the ball

Abstract

In this paper we establish a necessary and sufficient condition for the solvability of the Dirichlet problem in the unit ball $\mathbb{B}$ for the second order system $\partial_{\underline{x}} f\partial_{\underline{x}}=0$, where $\partial_{\underline{x}}$ stands for the Clifford-algebra valued Dirac operator in $\mathbb{R}^m$. We prove that the problem admits a solution whenever the boundary data belong to $C^1(\partial\mathbb{B})$. Conversely, we construct explicit counterexamples showing that solvability may fail if this smoothness assumption on the boundary is not satisfied. Moreover, in contrast with the standard commutative setting, we show how that solutions exhibit a regularity one order less than the boundary data, when the latter belong to $C^{k,\nu}(\partial\mathbb{B})$.