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The Sobolev embedding theorem $H^2(\Omega )\hookrightarrow L^{\infty }(\Omega )$ in dimension three, combined with the preceding estimate, givesOne direct justification of this embedding is a bounded Sobolev extension operator into $H^2({\mathbb{R}}^3)$, followed by Fourier inversion and the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality: ${\int }_{{\mathbb{R}}^3}(1+|\xi {|}^2{)}^{-2}d\xi <\infty$ bounds the inverse Fourier integral by the $H^2$ norm.

For radial forcing, the preceding part makes $u=U(r)$ and $f=F(r)$. Set $a=1/2$, $b=2$ and $H(r)={\int }_a^r{s}^{2}F(s)ds$. The radial equation gives $r^2{U}^{\prime }(r)=C_0+H(r)$. Both zero boundary values implyMoreover $\Vert H{\Vert }_{\infty }\le ({\int }_a^b{s}^{2}ds{)}^{1/2}({\int }_a^b{s}^2|F{|}^{2}ds{)}^{1/2}\le C\Vert f{\Vert }_2$. Since $r\ge a$, this proves the radial Poisson gradient estimate:

For a nonradial counterexample choose $x_0$ in the shell and a nonconstant $\phi \in C_c^{\infty }(B(0,1))$. For sufficiently small $\epsilon$, set $u_{\epsilon }(x)={\epsilon }^{1/2}\phi ((x-x_0)/\epsilon )$ and $f_{\epsilon }=\Delta u_{\epsilon }$. These are smooth with support away from the boundary. Scaling givesThus the failure of L2-to-Linfinity Poisson gradient bounds in three dimensions is explicit, despite the valid $H^2$ and value-supremum estimates.