Quasiconformal mappings on the Grushin plane (Q1686786)

Quasiconformality in is a notion that generalizes classical conformality to abstract metric spaces. Two main definitions for quasiconformal mappings in Euclidean spaces are the geometric and the metric definitions. A homeomorphism \(f\) of \(\mathbb{R}^n\) is \textit{metrically quasiconformal} if ``infinitesimal balls are transformed to infinitesimal ellipsoids of bounded eccentricity'', i.e. \[ \limsup_{r\to 0} \frac{\sup_{|x-x_0|=r}|f(x)-f(x_0)|}{\inf_{|x-x_0|=r}|f(x)-f(x_0)|} \leq K \] for some fixed \(K>1\) and for every \(x_0\in\mathbb{R}^n\). Additionally, a homeomorphism \(f\) of \(\mathbb{R}^n\) is \textit{quasisymmetric} if the inequality in metric quasiconformality holds without limit. A homeomorphism \(f\) of \(\mathbb{R}^n\) is \textit{geometrically quasiconformal} if \[ K^{-1}\text{Mod}_n{f(\Gamma)} \leq \text{Mod}_n{\Gamma} \leq K\text{Mod}_n{f(\Gamma)} \] for some fixed \(K>1\) and for every family \(\Gamma\) of paths in \(\mathbb{R}^n\). Here \(\text{Mod}_n{\Gamma}\) denotes the conformal modulus of the path family \(\Gamma\) and is equal to \(\inf \int_{\mathbb{R}^n}\rho^n\) where the infimum is taken over all Borel functions \(\rho:\mathbb{R}^n \to \mathbb{R}\) such that \(\int_{\gamma}\rho \, ds =1\) for every path \(\gamma \in \Gamma\). It is a deep fact due to Gehring, Väisälä in the 1950s and early 1960s, that these three notions are equivalent for homeomorphisms of \(\mathbb{R}^n\) or of Riemannian manifolds. This result was later generalized by \textit{J. Heinonen} and \textit{P. Koskela} [Invent. Math. 120, No. 1, 61--79 (1995; Zbl 0832.30013); Acta Math. 181, No. 1, 1--61 (1998; Zbl 0915.30018)] for homeomorphisms of Carnot groups replacing the conformal modulus with an appropriate quantity. Building on recent work of \textit{C. Ackermann} [Ann. Acad. Sci. Fenn., Math. 40, No. 1, 305--320 (2015; Zbl 1329.30029)], the authors of the paper under review prove the equivalence of these three notions for homeomorphisms of the Grushin plane \(\mathbb{G}_{\alpha}\), a well known sub-Riemannian manifold. The space \(\mathbb{G}_{\alpha}\) (\(\alpha\geq 0\)) is \(\mathbb{R}^2\) equipped with the two vector fields \(X_1 = \partial_x\) and \(X_2 = |x|^{\alpha}\partial_y\) that induce a Carnot-Carathéodory distance. The paper's main theorem is Theorem 1.1 and it summarizes results of Ackermann and the paper's results, In Section 2 the authors show that metric quasiconformality on the Riemannian part of \(\mathbb{G}_{\alpha}\) implies quasisymmetry. In Section 3, the authors prove the paper's main result: that quasisymmetry implies geometric quasiconformality. The proof is based on the fact (Proposition 3.2) that every rectifiable curve can not intersect the non-Riemannian part of \(\mathbb{G}_{\alpha}\) in a set pf positive \(\mathcal{H}^1\)-measure. Section 4 contains a description of conformal homeomorphisms of \(\mathbb{G}_{\alpha}\) while Section 5 illustrates some differences between the current setting and the Euclidean setting.