Nearly hyperharmonic functions are infima of excessive functions

Let $\mathfrak X$ be a Hunt process on a locally compact space $X$ such that the set $\mathcal E_{\mathfrak X}$ of its Borel measurable excessive functions separates points, every function in $\mathcal E_{\mathfrak X}$ is the supremum of its continuous minorants in $\mathcal E_{\mathfrak X}$ and there are strictly positive continuous functions $v,w\in\mathcal E_{\mathfrak X}$ such that $v/w$ vanishes at infinity. A numerical function $u\ge 0$ on $X$ is said to be nearly hyperharmonic, if $\int^\ast u\circ X_{\tau_V}\,dP^x\le u(x)$ for all $x\in X$ and relatively compact open neighborhoods $V$ of $x$, where $\tau_V$ denotes the exit time of $V$. For every such function $u$, its lower semicontinous regularization $\hat u$ is excessive. The main purpose of the paper is to give a short, complete and understandable proof for the statement that every Borel measurable nearly hyperharmonic function on $X$ is the infimum of its majorants in $E_{\mathfrak X}$. The major novelties of our approach are the following: 1. A quick reduction to the special case, where starting at $x\in X$ with $u(x)<\infty$ the expected number of times the process $\mathfrak X$ visits the set of points $y\in X$, where $\hat u(y):=\liminf_{z\to y} u(z)<u(y)$, is finite. 2. The statement that the integral $\int u\,d\mu$ is the infimum of all integrals $\int w\,d\mu$, $w\in E_{\mathfrak X}$ and $w\ge u$, not only for measures $\mu$ satisfying $\int w\,d\mu<\infty$ for some excessive majorant $w$ of $u$, but also for all finite measures. At the end, the measurability assumption on $u$ is weakened considerably.Comment: The presentation is improved at various places. In particular, the special case is more restrictive and yields a better intuition, there is a new Lemma 3.5 leading to a simplification in the proof of Theorem 3.4, and the reduction to the special case in Section 4 is shortened. Whereas Sections 5 and 6 are not modified, there is a more general Section

Scaling invariant Harnack inequalities in a general setting

In a setting, where only "exit measures" are given, as they are associated with an arbitrary right continuous strong Markov process on a separable metric space, we provide simple criteria for the validity of Harnack inequalities for positive harmonic functions. These inequalities are scaling invariant with respect to a metric on the state space which, having an associated Green function, may be adapted to the special situation. In many cases, this also implies continuity of harmonic functions and H\"older continuity of bounded harmonic functions. The results apply to large classes of L\'evy (and similar) processes