Rectifiability and upper Minkowski bounds for singularities of harmonic \(Q\)-valued maps (Q1757306)

In the set \(\mathcal{A}_Q(\mathbb R^n)\) of \(Q\)-valued functions taking values in the space of unordered \(Q\)-tuples of points in \(\mathbb R^n\), the distance between two points \(T_1\) and \(T_2\) is given by \(d(T_1,T_2)=\min\limits_{\sigma\in\mathcal{P}_Q}\sqrt{\sum\limits^Q_{i=1}|P_i-S_{\sigma(i)}|^2}\), where \(T=\sum\limits^Q_{i=1}\big[\!|P_i|\!\big]\), \(\big[\!|P_i|\!\big]\) is the Dirac measure concentrated on \(P_i\in\mathbb R^n\), and \(\mathcal{P}_Q\) is the group of permutations of \(Q\) elements. \((\mathcal{A}_Q(\mathbb R^n),d)\) is a complete metric space. A point \(x\in\Omega\subset\mathbb R^n\) is a regular point for a \(Q\)-valued Dirichlet minimizer \(u:\Omega\to\mathcal{A}_Q(\mathbb R^n)\) if there exists a neighborhood \(B\) of \(x\) and \(Q\) harmonic functions \(u_i:B\to\mathbb R^n\) such that \(u(y)=\sum\limits^Q_{i=1}\big[\!|u_i(y)|\!\big]\) for all \(y\in B\), and either \(u_i(y)\neq u_j(y)\) or \(u_i\equiv u_j\). The set \(\Sigma_u\) of singular points of \(u\), that is, the complement of the set of regular points, is closed. An important subset \(\Delta_Q=\{x\}\) of \(\Sigma_u\) consisting of those singular points where all the values of \(u(x)\) coincide, or such that \(u(x)=Q\big[\!|P|\!\big]\) for some \(P\in\mathbb R^n\), is also closed. In [Mem. Am. Math. Soc. 991, i--v, 79 p. (2011; Zbl 1246.49001)], \textit{C. De Lellis} and \textit{E. N. Spadaro} proved that if \(u:\Omega\subset\mathbb R^m\to\mathcal{A}_Q(\mathbb R^n)\) is a Dirichlet-minimizing \(Q\)-valued function, then \(\Sigma_u\) is a relatively closed subset of \(\Omega\) with Hausdorff dimension no larger than \(m-2\). In this paper, the authors show that the singular set of Dirichlet-minimizing \(Q\)-valued functions is countably \((m-2)\)-rectifiable and they give upper bounds for the \((m-2)\)-dimensional Minkowski content of the set of singular points with multiplicity \(Q\), that is, they prove that if \(u:\Omega\subset\mathbb R^m\to\mathcal{A}_Q(\mathbb R^n)\) is a Dirichlet-minimizing function, \(K\) is any compact subset of \(\Omega\), \(\mathcal{H}^{m-2}(\Delta_Q\cap K)\infty\), then there exists constant \(C(K,u)\) such that \(|B_r(\Delta_Q)\cap K|\leq C(K,u) r^2\) for any \(r1\), where \(B_r(E)=\{p;\;\text{dist}(p,E)\}\) is the open \(r\)-tubular neighborhood of a set \(E\). Moreover, \(\Delta_Q\) can be covered by countably many \(C^1\) surfaces of dimension \(m-2\), that is, \(\Delta_Q\) is \((m-2)\)-countably rectifiable except for a set of \(\mathcal{H}^{m-2}\) measure zero. Also, they show that the singular set \(\Sigma_u\) of a Dirichlet minimizer \(Q\)-valued function \(u\) is \((m-2)\)-countably rectifiable.