Beltrami equations in the plane and Sobolev regularity (Q1691288)

The Beltrami equation \(\overline{\partial}f = \mu \partial f + \nu \overline{\partial}f\), \(\kappa =\| |\mu| + |\nu| \|_{L^{\infty}} < 1\) admits the so called principal solution \(f \in W^{1,2}_{\mathrm{loc}}(\mathbf{C})\) such that \(f\) is a homeomorphism and \(f(z) - z = O(1/z)\) as \(z \rightarrow \infty\) provided that \(\mu\) and \(\nu\) are compactly supported. Let \(p_{\kappa} = 1 + 1/\kappa > 2\) be the extremal exponent. By the result of \textit{K. Astala} [Acta Math. 173, No. 1, 37--60 (1994; Zbl 0815.30015)], \(\overline{\partial}f \in L^p\) for \(1/p_{\kappa}< 1/p \leq 1\). The Sobolev space \(W^{s,p}(\mathbf{R}^d)\) is critical if \(s-d/p = 0\), supercritical if \(s-d/p > 0\) and subcritical if \(s-d/p < 0\). If the coefficients \(\mu\) and \(\nu\) have some extra regularity, then this reflects in the regularity of \(f\) and the paper pays special attention to the critical- and subcritical cases. It is shown that if \(0 < s < 2\), \(1 < p < \infty\), \(\mu, \, \nu \in W^{s,p}_c(\mathbf{C})\) and \(\kappa <1\), then for \(s = 2/p\) (the critical case), \(\overline{\partial}f \in W^{s,q}\) for every \(1/q > 1/p\), and for \(s < 2/p\) and \(1/p < (1-\kappa)/(1+\kappa)\) (the subcritical case), \(\overline{\partial}f \in W^{s,q}\) for every \(1/q > 1/p + 1/p_{\kappa}\). The paper contains a thorough discussion of the earlier results and a conjecture to improve the results in the subcritical case.