Heat flow and quantitative differentiation (Q2009216)

The authors get an improved bound for the fundamental quantitative differentiation problem that was formulated by \textit{S. Bates} et al. [Geom. Funct. Anal. 9, No. 6, 1092--1127 (1999; Zbl 0954.46014)] and it consequently yields a new proof of \textit{J. Bourgain}'s discretization theorem [Lect. Notes Math. 1267, 157--167 (1987; Zbl 0633.46018)] for uniform convex targets, which asks for a lower estimate on the largest possible \(\delta\in (0,1)\) such that \(c_Y(X)\le 2 c_Y(\mathcal{N}_\delta)\) for any \(\delta\)-net \(\mathcal{N}_\delta\) in the unit ball of a finite dimensional Banach space \(X\), where \(C_Z(M)\) stands for the (bi-Lipschitz) distortion constant of a metric space \(M\) in another metric space \(Z\). The authors show that, for any Banach space \((Y,\|\cdot\|_Y)\) that admits an equivalent uniformly convex norm, there exists \(c=c(Y)>0\) satisfying that, for any \(n\)-dimensional Banach space \(X\) with unit ball \(B_X\), any \(1\)-Lipschitz function \(f:B_X\to Y\) and \(0<\varepsilon\le 1/2\), there exist \(r\ge \exp(-1/\varepsilon^{cn})\), \(x\in B_X\) with \(x+rB_X\subset B_X\) and an affine mapping \(\Lambda:X\to Y\) such that \(\|f(y)-\Lambda(y)\|_Y\le \varepsilon r\) for every \(y\in x+rB_X\). Previous results in the same direction were achieved by \textit{S. Li} and the second author [Isr. J. Math. 197, 107--129 (2013; Zbl 1291.46021)]. The proof of the above result contains contributions to Littlewood-Paley theory, establishing a new uniformly convex-valued Littlewood-Paley-Stein \(\mathcal G\)-function inequality for the heat semigroup. Their argument fails for the Poisson semigroup where an analogue of the theory was developed by \textit{T. Martínez} et al. [Adv. Math. 203, No. 2, 430--475 (2006; Zbl 1111.46008)].