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Let$D$⊂$C$be a simply connected domain that contains 0 and does not contain any disk of radius larger than 1. For$R$>0, let$ω$_{$D$}($R$) denote the harmonic measure at 0 of the set {$z$:|$z$|≽$R$}⋔∂$D$. Then it is shown that$there exist$β>0$and C$>0$such that for each such D$,$ω$_{$D$}($R$)≤$Ce$^{−$βR$},$for every R$>0. Thus a natural question is: What is the supremum of all β′s , call it β_{0}, for which the above inequality holds for every such$D$? Another formulation of the problem involves hyperbolic metric instead of harmonic measure. Using this formulation a lower bound for β_{0}is found. Upper bounds for β_{0}can be obtained by constructing examples of domains$D$. It is shown that a certain domain whose boundary consists of an infinite number of vertical half-lines, i.e. a comb domain, gives a good upper bound. This bound disproves a conjecture of C. Bishop which asserted that the strips of width 2 are extremal domains. Harmonic measures on comb domains are also studied.

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For a random walk on a finitely generated group G we obtain a generalization of a classical inequality of Ancona. We deduce as a corollary that the identity map on G extends to a continuous equivariant surjection from the Martin boundary to the Floyd boundary, with preimages of conical points being singletons. This provides new results for Martin compactifications of relatively hyperbolic groups.

Nonself-adjoint, non-dissipative perturbations of possibly unbounded self-adjoint operators with real purely singular spectrum are considered under an additional assumption that the characteristic function of the operator possesses a scalar multiple. Using a functional model of a nonself-adjoint operator (a generalization of a Sz.-Nagy–Foiaş model for dissipative operators) as a principle tool, spectral properties of such operators are investigated. A class of operators with almost Hermitian spectrum (the latter being a part of the real singular spectrum) is characterized in terms of existence of the so-called weak outer annihilator which generalizes the classical Cayley identity to the case of nonself-adjoint operators in Hilbert space. A similar result is proved in the self-adjoint case, characterizing the condition of absence of the absolutely continuous spectral subspace in terms of the existence of weak outer annihilation. An application to the rank-one nonself-adjoint Friedrichs model is given.