TITLE: Can any harmonic function on $\{z:0<|z|<1\}$ be extended to $z=0$?
QUESTION [10 upvotes]: After looking at this question for quite some time, I've asked a couple of other students, and they also couldn't seem to come up with an answer.  This is from an old qualifying exam at our university.
Let $u$ be a harmonic function bounded on the set $\{z:0 < |z| < 1\}$.  Can it always be defined at the point $ z= 0$ to become harmonic on the whole unit disk?
The standard argument with the logarithm doesn't work here, as it must be bounded on the punctured disk, and the logarithm blows up at $0$.   Also, we can't use any kind of harmonic conjugate argument because our domain is not simply connected.  Thus, I think it's probably true, but I haven't been able to come up with a proof. 
Thanks in advance for any help!

REPLY [7 votes]: Yes, you can  extend $u$ to a harmonic function $U$ defined on  the whole disk $D=\{z\in \mathbb C:0 < |z| < 1\}$.
Take a circle of radius $0\lt r\lt 1$. 
The key to the problem is the remark that if the harmonic extension $U$ exists, it will be given for $\mid z\mid \lt r$ by the Poisson formula 
$$U(z) =\frac{1}{2\pi}\int_0^{2\pi} u(re^{i\theta})P(r,\theta,z) d\theta$$   where $$ P(r,\theta,z)=\frac{r^2-\mid z\mid }{\mid re^{i\theta}-z\mid}^2   $$ is the Poisson kernel.
Conversely, $U$ defined by the formula above is harmonic on $\lbrace z\in \mathbb C:0 < |z| < r\rbrace$ : this is known as the solution to Dirichlet's problem by Poisson's integral formula.
That $U$ coincides with $u$ on $\lbrace z\in \mathbb C:0 < |z| < r\rbrace$  and thus harmonically extends $u$ through $0$ necessitates a little approximation argument that you will find on page 33 of this freely available book  on harmonic functions.