Double ball property: an overview and the case of step two Carnot groups

Abstract

We investigate the notion of the so-called Double Ball Property, which concerns the nonnegative sub-solutions of some differential operators. Thanks to the axiomatic approach developed in [6], this is an important tool in order to solve the Krylov-Safonov's Harnack inequality problem for this kind of operators. In particular, we are interested in linear second order horizontally-elliptic operators in non-divergence formand with measurable coefficients. In the setting of homogeneous Carnot groups, we would like to stress the relation between the Double Ball Property and a kind of solvability of the Dirichlet problem for the operator in the exterior of some homogeneous balls. We present a recent result obtained in [15], where the double ball property has been proved in a generic Carnot group of step two.