On the three ball theorem for solutions of the Helmholtz equation

Let $$u_{k}$$ u k be a solution of the Helmholtz equation with the wave number k, $$\varDelta u_{k}+k^{2} u_{k}=0$$ Δ u k + k 2 u k = 0 , on (a small ball in) either $${\mathbb {R}}^{n}$$ R n , $${\mathbb {S}}^{n}$$ S n , or $${\mathbb {H}}^{n}$$ H n . For a fixed point p, we define $$M_{u_{k}}(r)=\max _{d(x,p)\le r}|u_{k}(x)|.$$ M u k ( r ) = max d ( x , p ) ≤ r | u k ( x ) | . The following three ball inequality $$M_{u_{k}}(2r)\le C(k,r,\alpha )M_{u_{k}}(r)^{\alpha }M_{u_{k}}(4r)^{1-\alpha }$$ M u k ( 2 r ) ≤ C ( k , r , α ) M u k ( r ) α M u k ( 4 r ) 1 - α is well known, it holds for some $$\alpha \in (0,1)$$ α ∈ ( 0 , 1 ) and $$C(k,r,\alpha )>0$$ C ( k , r , α ) > 0 independent of $$u_{k}$$ u k . We show that the constant $$C(k,r,\alpha )$$ C ( k , r , α ) grows exponentially in k (when r is fixed and small). We also compare our result with the increased stability for solutions of the Cauchy problem for the Helmholtz equation on Riemannian manifolds.