Quantitative Pólya-Szegö principle for convex symmetrization (Q1041155)

The classical Pólya and Szegő principle states that Dirichlet type integrals decrease under Schwarz symmetrization. In other words if \(u\) is a nonnegative, compactly supported smooth function in \({\mathbb R}^n\), \(p\geq 1\) and \(u^\sharp\) denotes the Schwarz symmetral of \(u\), then \[ \int_{{\mathbb R}^n}|\nabla u^{\sharp}|^p\,dx \leq \int_{{\mathbb R}^n}|\nabla u |^p\,dx. \] In the recent paper by \textit{A. Cianchi, L. Esposito, N. Fusco} and \textit{C. Trombetti} [J. Reine Angew. Math. 614, 153-189 (2008; Zbl 1175.46021)] a quantitative version of this principle was obtained. The paper under review contains the same result in the general case of convex symmetrization. Let \(H\) be a convex function, positively homogeneous of degree one and \(u^*\) the corresponding convex symmetrization of the function \(u\). It is well-known that \[ \int_{{\mathbb R}^n}H^p(\nabla u^*)\,dx \leq \int_{{\mathbb R}^n}H^p(\nabla u)\, dx \tag{1} \] In this paper, inequality (1) is strengthened by estimating the deviation of \(u\) from \(u^*\) in terms of the gap between \(\int_{{\mathbb R}^n}H^p(\nabla u) \,dx\) and \(\int_{{\mathbb R}^n}H^p(\nabla u^*) \,dx\). The main result states that positive constants \(r,s\) and \(C\), depending only on \(p\), \(n\), and \(H\), exist such that \[ \min_\pm \inf_{x_0\in {\mathbb R}^n} \int_{{\mathbb R}^n}|u(x) \pm u^*(x+x_0)|\,dx \leq C[M_{u^*}(E(u)^r)+E(u)]^s, \] where \[ \begin{aligned} E(u)&= \frac{\int_{{\mathbb R}^n} H^p(\nabla u)^p\, dx} {\int_{{\mathbb R}^n}H^p(\nabla u^*)\,dx}-1,\\ M_{u^*}(\sigma)&= \frac{{\mathcal L}^n(\{|\nabla u^*|\leq \sigma\}\cap \{0<u^*\}<\text{ess}\sup u)} {{\mathcal L}^n(\{|u |>0\})} \quad \text{for} \quad \sigma\geq 0, \end{aligned} \] and \({\mathcal L}^n\) denotes the Lebesgue measure.