Quasiconformal metric and its application to quasiregular mappings (Q1058013)

Given two points x,y in a domain \(G\subset R^ n\) the quasiconformal distance \(c_ G(x,y)\) of x and y is inf cap\({}_ n(E,G)\) where the infimum is taken over all continua E in G connecting x and y. Here \(cap_ n(E,G)\) is the variational n-capacity between E and \(\partial G\) in G or the corresponding n-modulus. Using the inequality (*) \(c_{D'}(f(x),f(y))\leq K\) \(c_ D(x,y)\) for a K-quasiregular (qr) mapping \(f: G\to R^ n\), \(D'=f(D)\), \(D\subset G\), the author obtains several basic results in the theory of qr mappings: (1) If \(f: G\to R^ n\) is a non-constant qr mapping and \(cap_ n(R^ n\setminus G)>0\), then \(cap_ n(R^ n\setminus f(G))>0\), (2) equicontinuity of the family of K-qr mappings of G into G' under the assumption \(cap_ n(R^ n\setminus G')>0\), and (3) unique continuation to a set of zero n-capacity. For the definition of \(c_ G(x,y)\) see [\textit{T. Kuusalo}, Proc. Romanian-Finnish Sem. Teichmüller spaces quasiconform. mappings, Braşov 1969, 193- 202 (1971; Zbl 0216.355)] and for the original proof of the above results [\textit{O. Martio}, \textit{S. Rickman} and \textit{J. Vaisälä}, Ann. Acad. Sci. Fenn., Ser. A I 465, 13 p. (1970; Zbl 0197.057)]. The author also shows that (*) and some additional assumptions can be used to characterize qr mappings.