A characterization of BMO in terms of endpoint bounds for commutators of singular integrals (Q1618139)

The paper is devoted to providing necessary conditions for endpoint estimates of the commutators of singular integrals. Let $b\in L^1_{\mathrm{loc}}(\mathbb{R})$. The $k$-th order commutator of the Hilbert transform is defined by $H_b^kf(x)={p.v.}\int_{\mathbb{R}}\frac{(b(x)-b(y))^k}{x-y}f(y)\,dy$. Let $\phi_k(t)=t(1+\log^+(t))^k$. The first main result concerns dimension one and says that, if there exists a constant $B$ and a positive integer $k$ such that \[ |\{x\in\mathbb{R}:|H_b^kg(x)|>t\}|\le\int_{\mathbb{R}}\phi_k\left(\frac{B|f(x)|}{t}\right)dx, \] then $b\in \mathrm{BMO}(\mathbb{R})$ and $\|b\|_{\mathrm{BMO}(\mathbb{R})}\lesssim B^{1/k}$. \par Now let $n\ge 2$ and $\Omega\in\text{Lip}(S^{n-1})$ be homogeneous of degree zero and satisfy $\int_{S^{n-1}}\Omega=0$. Consider the singular integral $Tf(x)={p.v.}\int_{\mathbb{R}^n}\frac{\Omega(x-y)}{|x-y|^n}f(y)\,dy$ and its commutator $[b,T]$ with the multiplication operator by a function $b\in L^1_{\mathrm{loc}}(\mathbb{R}^n)$. The second main result says that, if $[b,T]$ is bounded from $L^1(\mathbb{R}^n)$ to $L^{1,\infty}(\mathbb{R}^n)$, then $b$ is bounded and $\|b\|_{L^\infty}\le C(\Omega,n)\|[b,T]\|_{L^1\to L^{1,\infty}}$. The third main result says that, if there exists a constant $B$ such that, for every measurable set $E$ and every $t>0$, one has \[ |\{x\in\mathbb{R}^n:|[b,T]\chi_E(x)|>t\}| \le\int_{\mathbb{R}^n}\phi_1\left(\frac{B\chi_E(x)}{t}\right)\,dx, \] \[ |\{x\in\mathbb{R}^n:|[b,T^*]\chi_E(x)|>t\}| \le\int_{\mathbb{R}^n}\phi_1\left(\frac{B\chi_E(x)}{t}\right)\,dx, \] then $b\in \mathrm{BMO}(\mathbb{R}^n)$ and $\|b\|_{\mathrm{BMO}(\mathbb{R}^n)}\le C(\Omega,n)B$. \par The authors point out that similar results were obtained independently and by different methods in [\textit{W.-C. Guo} et al., ``The unified theory for the necessity of bounded commutators and applications'', Preprint (2017), \url{arXiv:1709.08279}].