Lipschitz functions (Q1738336)

The main goal of this book is to present various facets of the theory and applications of Lipschitz functions, starting with classical and culminating with some recent results. Among the included topics the authors mention: characterizations of Lipschitz functions and relations with other classes of functions, extension results for Lipschitz functions and Lipschitz partitions of unity, Lipschitz free Banach spaces and their applications, compactness properties of Lipschitz operators, Bishop-Phelps type results for Lipschitz functionals, applications to best approximation in metric and in metric linear spaces, Kantorovich-Rubinstein norm and applications to duality in the optimal transport problem, Lipschitz mappings on geodesic spaces. Chapter 1, ``Prerequisites''. For the reader's convenience in the first chapter, some notions and results used throughout the book are collected. In this part also are given references only to some appropriate books where the mentioned results can be found along with references to the original papers were they were first proved. This results are in area of real analysis, functional analysis, measure theory (including vector measures), and topology. Lipschitz functions form a class of functions which appear not only in many branches of mathematics, as the theory of ordinary differential equations, partial differential equations, measure theory, nonlinear functional analysis, topology, metric geometry, and fractal theory, but also in computer science, as in image processing or in the study of Internet search engines. It must be noted that the condition of being Lipschitz could be viewed as a weakened version of differentiability, and therefore, these functions are a good substitute for smooth functions in the framework of metric spaces. Chapter 2. In this chapter, the existence of some Lipschitz functions (the analog of Urysohn's lemma for Lipschitz functions) and of Lipschitz partitions of unity is proved. Also, the algebraic operations with Lipschitz functions, sequences of Lipschitz functions, Lipschitz properties for differentiable functions (including a characterization in terms of Dini derivatives), and the possibility of gluing together Lipschitz functions are presented. Applications are given to a sandwich type theorem, to Lipschitz selections for set-valued mappings and to the Lipschitz separability of the Banach space \(C(T)\) is also proved. Chapter 3 starts with a detailed discussion on Lipschitz properties of convex functions, including vector functions. In the vector case, meaning convex functions defined on a locally convex space with values in a locally convex space ordered by a cone, we emphasize the key role played by the normality of the cone. Equi-Lipschitz properties of families of convex functions and Lipschitz properties of convex functions defined on metric linear spaces are discussed as well. Other considered topics involve the existence of an equivalent metric making a given continuous function Lipschitz and metric spaces where every continuous function is Lipschitz. An old result of Fichtenholz (from 1922) on the relation between absolutely continuous and Lipschitz functions is included. The chapter ends with a discussion on the differentiability properties of Lipschitz functions based of Rademacher-type theorems in finite and in infinite dimension. Chapter 4. In this chapter, the possibility to extend a Lipschitz function from a subset of a metric space to the whole space with the preservation of the Lipschitz constant (a Hahn-Banach-type result for Lipschitz functions) is studied. Besides, the chapter contains several results on the existence of norm-preserving extensions of Lipschitz functions -- Kirszbraun, McShane, Valentine, and Flett. A discussion on the corresponding property for semi-Lipschitz functions defined on quasi-metric spaces and for Lipschitz functions with values in a quasi-normed space is included as well. Chapter 5. Geodesic metric spaces are a natural generalization of Riemannian manifolds and provide a suitable setting for the study of problems from various areas of mathematics with important applications. In this chapter. we review selected properties of Lipschitz mappings in geodesic metric spaces focusing mainly on certain extension theorems which generalize corresponding ones from linear contexts. After introducing some definitions and results from the theory of geodesic metric spaces with an emphasis on the notion of curvature, we discuss Lipschitz extension results of Kirszbraun and McShane type in Alexandrov spaces with lower or upper curvature bounds considered globally. Even if the existence of a Lipschitz extension is guaranteed by an extension result, in general this extension is not unique. Here, is given the parameter dependence of extensions of Lipschitz mappings from the point of view of continuity (with respect to the supremum distance). This chapter additionally includes two counterparts of the Dugundji extension theorem for continuous or Lipschitz mappings with values in nonpositive curved spaces in the sense of Busemann. Chapter 6 deals with the possibility to approximate various classes of functions (e.g., uniformly continuous) by Lipschitz functions, based on Lipschitz partitions of unity or on some extension results for Lipschitz functions. A result due to Baire on the approximation of semicontinuous functions by continuous ones, based on McShane's extension method, is also included. This chapter also contains a study of the homotopy of Lipschitz functions (two homotopic Lipschitz functions are Lipschitz homotopic) and an introduction to Lipschitz manifolds. Chapter 7 main results of are Aharoni's result (from 1974) on the bi-Lipschitz embeddability of separable metric spaces in the Banach space \(C_0\) and a result of Väisälä (from 1992) on the characterization of the completeness of a normed space \(X\) by the non-existence of bi-Lipschitz surjections of \(X\) onto \(X\{0\}\). Other related results are discussed in the final section of the chapter. The chapter offers only a glimpse of this very active area of research, the topic being treated at large in the books by \textit{Y. Benyamini} and \textit{J. Lindenstrauss} [Geometric nonlinear functional analysis. Volume 1. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (AMS) (2000; Zbl 0946.46002)] and in the two-volume treatise by \textit{A. Brudnyi} and \textit{Y. Brudnyi} [Methods of geometric analysis in extension and trace problems. Vol. 1. Basel: Birkhäuser (2012; Zbl 1253.46001); Methods of geometric analysis in extension and trace problems. Vol. 2. Basel: Birkhäuser (2012; Zbl 1252.46001)]. The validity of an extension result of Hahn-Banach-type for Lipschitz functions makes the space of Lipschitz functions on a Banach space \(X\) a good substitute for the linear dual \(X^\ast\). Chapter 8. In this chapter, several Banach spaces of Lipschitz functions (Lipschitz functions vanishing at a fixed point, bounded Lipschitz functions, little Lipschitz functions) on a metric space are introduced and some of their properties are presented. A detailed study of free Lipschitz spaces is carried out, including several ways to introduce them and duality results. The study of Monge-Kantorovich and Hanin norms is tightly connected with Lipschitz spaces, mainly via the weak convergence of probability measures, a topic treated in Sects. 8.4 and 8.5. Compactness and weak compactness properties of Lipschitz operators on Banach spaces and of compositions operators on spaces of Lipschitz functions are also studied, emphasizing the key role played by the Lipschitz free Banach spaces. Another theme presented here is the Bishop-Phelps property for Lipschitz functions, meaning density results for Lipschitz functions that attain their norms. Finally, applications to best approximation in metric spaces and in metric linear spaces \(X\) are given in the last section (Sect. 8.9) of this chapter, showing how results from the linear theory can be transposed to this situation, by using as a dual space the space of Lipschitz functions defined on \(X\). There are two other books devoted to Lipschitz functions and spaces of Lipschitz functions [\textit{N. Weaver}, Lipschitz algebras. Singapore: World Scientific (1999; Zbl 0936.46002); \textit{R. Miculescu} and \textit{C. Mortici}, Lipschitz functions (Romanian). Bucharest: Editura Academiei Române (2004; Zbl 1096.49011)]. The authors tried to keep the overlapping with these books at an inevitable minimum, making this book complementary to them. An important topic missing from this book is that of fixed points for Lipschitz mappings, but which is well treated in many books devoted to fixed point theory, as, for instance, in [\textit{Piasecki}, Classification of Lipschitz mappings. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press (2014; Zbl 1306.47002)]. The bibliography (almost 700 items) contains references to the sources of the results included in the book as well as to further results mentioned in the final sections of each chapter. The book is accessible to graduate students, but it also contains recent results of interest to researchers in various domains as metric geometry, mathematical analysis, and functional analysis. My opinion this book will be of interest to everyone whose domain of interest is mathematical analysis and its applications.