Approximation of Sobolev functions in Jordan domains (Q1117063)

Let \(\Omega\) be a domain in \({\mathbb{R}}^ 2\), \(1<p<\infty\), \(W_{1,p}(\Omega)\) the Sobolev space (of all functions \(f\in L^ p_{(\Omega)}\) whose distributional first-order partial derivatives also belong to \(L^ p(\Omega))\). The principal theorem of the paper asserts that if \(\Omega\) is a bounded Jordan domain, then the set of all restrictions onto \(\Omega\) of \(C^{\infty}({\mathbb{R}}^ 2)\)-functions is dense in \(W_{1,p}(\Omega)\). Note that for Jordan \(\Omega\) 's not every \(f\in W_{1,p}(\Omega)\) is in general the trace of a function from \(W_{1,p}({\mathbb{R}}^ 2)\). As an application a theorem on the approximation by polynomials of a complex variable in \(W_{p,1}(\Omega)\) is proved.