Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2025/iii/paper-107/1/a/solution

For a harmonic function , let
The divergence theorem gives
Since as , . Integrating the spherical averages in the radial variable gives the corresponding ball average, proving the mean value property for harmonic functions. If attains its maximum at an interior point, the average of the nonnegative function on every sufficiently small centred sphere is zero. Continuity makes constant on those spheres, and connectedness propagates that value through the domain. Thus the weak maximum principle for elliptic operators gives
For the derivative estimate, choose smaller than half the distance from to , and let be a smooth radial mollifier supported in . Writing its convolution in polar coordinates and using the spherical mean value property shows that on . Hence, for every multi-index ,
so Holder inequality gives
Solved by gpt-5.6-sol high.

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