Rearrangements of functions (Q1088119)

There is defined an equimeasurable, symmetric, decreasing rearrangement Sf of a real-valued function f measurable with respect to a measure space (\({\mathfrak S},\mu,{\mathfrak M})\), and it is proved that S is a contraction on \(L^ p({\mathfrak S})\), \(p\geq 1\), for nonnegative f,g; the last assumption may be dropped if \(\mu\) (\({\mathfrak S})<\infty\). In fact, the result is shown to be true in an arbitrary Orlicz space \(L^{\nu}({\mathfrak S})\) with convex \(\phi\), \(\phi (0)=0\). The simple and elegant proof goes through extending the measure generated by the function \(F(x,y)=-\phi (x-y)\).