Quasiconformal mappings and singularity of boundary distortion (Q1042668)

Let \(f:\mathbb D\to\Omega\) be a conformal mapping of the unit disk \(\mathbb D\) onto a domain \(\Omega\subset\mathbb C\). Recall that, by a classical theorem of Beurling, the boundary function of \(f\) is defined in terms of angular limits everywhere on \(\partial\,\mathbb D\) except for a set of logarithmic capacity zero. Some time ago, Jones and Makarov established the following remarkable result concerning the singularity of the boundary distortion of \(f\). Let \(m_2\) denote the \(2\)-dimensional Lebesgue measure. Write \(f^\ast\Lambda_\varphi\perp m_2\) if \(f\) maps the whole unit circle except a set of zero \(\Lambda_\varphi\)-measure onto a set of zero area. Here \(\Lambda_\varphi\) denotes the Hausdorff measure on \(\partial\,\mathbb D\) associated to a weight function \(\varphi\). {Theorem 1.} Let \(\varphi\) be a weight function satisfying \(\varphi(2r)\leq C\varphi(r)\), \(r>0\). Then \(f^\ast\Lambda_\varphi\perp m_2\) for every univalent function \(f\) if and only if \[ \int_0\left|\frac{\log\varphi(t)}{\log t}\right|^2\frac{dt}{t}=\infty.\tag{1} \] In this note, the authors extend the above result to quasiconformal mappings of the unit ball \(\mathbb B^n\), \(n\geq 2\), of the Euclidean space. By definition, a homeomorphism \(f: \mathbb B^n \to \Omega\subset \mathbb R^n\) is \(K\)-quasiconformal if \(f\in W_{\text{loc}}^{1,n}(\mathbb B^n;\Omega)\) and \(|Df(x)|^n\leq KJ_f(x)\) for almost every \(x\in \mathbb B^n\). Here \(|Df(x)|\) stands for the operator norm of the differential matrix of \(f\) at the point \(x\), while \(J_f(x)\) denotes the determinant of \(Df(x)\). Recall that, by an analogue of Beurling's theorem, the boundary mapping of \(f\) is defined in terms of radial limits everywhere on \(\partial\,\mathbb B^n\) except for a set of zero conformal \(n\)-capacity. In this setting, the authors establish the following theorem. {Theorem 2.} Let \(\varphi(t)\) be a weight function satisfying the conditions \[ \frac{\varphi'(t)\log t}{\varphi(t)\log\varphi(t)} \quad\text{is non-increasing or non-decreasing},\tag{2} \] \[ \frac{u(t)}{tu'(t)}\quad\text{is non-decreasing},\tag{3} \] \[ \log\frac{1}{u(t^2)}\leq\beta\log\frac{1}{u(t)},\tag{4} \] and set \(u =\varphi^{-1}\). Then \[ f^\ast\Lambda_\varphi\perp m_n\tag{5} \] for every quasiconformal mapping \(f :\mathbb B^n\to \Omega\subset\mathbb R^n\) if and only if \[ \int_0\left(\frac{u(t)}{u'(t)}\right)^{n-1}\frac{dt}{t}=\infty.\tag{6} \] Note that, in the case \(n = 2\), condition (6) is equivalent to condition (1). Thus, in the planar case, the authors recover the result of Jones and Makarov. The assumptions on the weight function \(\varphi\) are described more precisely in the following. Assume that, for all sufficiently small \(t> 0\), \(\varphi(t)\) is an increasing differentiable function such that \(\varphi(0) = 0\), \(\varphi(2t)\leq\beta \varphi(t)\), and, for some constant \(\beta > 1\), conditions (2), (3) and (4) are valid with \(u =\varphi^{-1}\) . These technical assumptions are harmless in the sense that they are satisfied in all interesting situations. The authors also extend the above result by replacing the \(n\)-dimensional Lebesgue measure \(m_n\) in (5) with a measure \(\Lambda_\psi\), where the gauge function \(\psi\) depends on \(\varphi\). Recall that the generalized Hausdorff measure \(\Lambda_\varphi\) (or simply \(\varphi\)-measure) is defined by \[ \Lambda_\varphi(E) = \lim_{r\to0}\left(\inf\left\{\sum\varphi(\text{diam}B_i) : E\subset\cup B_i, \text{diam}(B_i)\leq r\right\}\right), \] where the dimension gauge function \(\varphi\) is required to be continuous and increasing with \(\varphi(0) = 0\). In particular, if \(\varphi(t) = t^\alpha\) with some \(\alpha > 0\), then \(\Lambda_\varphi\) is the usual \(\alpha\)-dimensional Hausdorff measure, denoted also by \(H^\alpha\). The main result of the paper is the following theorem. We write \(f^\ast\Lambda_\varphi\perp\Lambda_\psi\) if \(f\) maps the whole unit sphere except a set of zero \(\varphi\)-measure to a set of zero \(\psi\)-measure. Theorem 3. Let \(\varphi\) be a weight function such that \(u =\varphi^{-1}\) satisfies (2), (3), (4), and (6). Then \[ f^\ast\Lambda_\varphi\perp\Lambda_\psi\tag{7} \] for every \(K\)-quasiconformal mapping \(f :\mathbb B^n\to\Omega\subset\mathbb R^n\) if there exist positive constants \(r_0\) and \(C_1\) such that \[ \psi(r)\leq C_1r^n\exp\left(C_2\int_{[r, r_0]}\left(\frac{u(t)}{u'(t)}\right)^{n-1}\right)\frac{dt}{t} \] for \( r < r_0\). Here \(C_2 = C_2(n,K,\beta) > 0\). The authors show that Theorem 3 is sharp in the following sense. Suppose that \(\varphi\) satisfies the conditions of Theorem 3. Then there are an open set \(\Omega\), a constant \(\tilde{C} > 0\), and a quasiconformal mapping \(f:\mathbb B^n\to \Omega\) such that, for any set \(E\subset \partial\mathbb B^n\) with \(\Lambda_\varphi(E) = 0\), we have \(\Lambda_\psi(f(\partial\mathbb B^n \setminus E)) > 0\) with a dimension gauge \(\psi\) satisfying \[ \psi(r)\leq r^n\exp\left(\tilde{C}\int_{[r, r_0]}\left(\frac{u(t)}{u'(t)}\right)^{n-1}\right)\frac{dt}{t} \] for all sufficiently small \(r > 0\), provided that \(\Lambda_\psi\) is absolutely continuous with respect to \(H^1\) (which is the interesting case). The authors give a concrete example of these results. The following remark indicates which dimension gauge functions are critical for the condition (5) to hold: Let \(s\geq 1\) and \(\varphi(t)= \exp\left(-\left(c\log\frac{1}{t}\right)^{1/s}\right)\). If \(f\) is a \(K\)-quasiconformal mapping of the unit ball \(\mathbb B^n\), \(n\geq 2\), then (5) holds if and only if \(s\leq n/(n -1)\). In the case \(s = n/(n - 1)\), (7) holds with the dimension gauge function \(\psi(r) = r^n\left(\log\frac{1}{r}\right)^C\), where \(C > 0\) depends only on \(n\), \(K\), and \(c\). Note that the latter statement is stronger than (5).