Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2015/iii/paper-9/4/a/solution

We use a blow-up compactness proof of an interior Schauder estimate, with Taylor normalization in elliptic blow-up arguments. Fix and suppose no suitable constant exists. There would be solutions with forcing for which
Choose distinct such that, for ,
Then , , and
In particular . Subtract the quadratic Taylor polynomial of at and rescale:
Its domain exhausts . The normalization gives
Taylor theorem, or integration along line segments from zero, consequently bounds on every fixed ball by constants times , respectively. The Hessian matrices are equicontinuous. The Arzela-Ascoli theorem and a diagonal subsequence therefore give in on compact subsets of .
The rescaled equation is
on each compact set. Thus is harmonic and is smooth. Every entry of its Hessian matrix is harmonic and has a global Hölder seminorm at most . The allowed Liouville lemma for globally Hölder harmonic functions makes each entry constant. Since , all these constants are zero.
On the other hand, is a unit vector and by construction. A further subsequence has ; the local convergence implies , a contradiction. Hence the desired constant exists, and
The global Hölder seminorm on the limiting Hessian matrix, rather than a bound on its magnitude throughout space, is what makes this Liouville argument work.

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