Second-order derivatives and rearrangements (Q1847782)

Monotonic and symmetric rearrangements (here, as in most of the paper under review, only the former will be addressed) are important in analysis. (For instance, the Lebesgue integral of a function is the Riemann integral of its monotonic rearrangement.) The decreasing rearrangement \(u^\ast\) of a nonnegative function \(u\) from a Sobolev space \(W^{1,p}(0,m)\) is also in \(W^{1,p}(0,m)\) and \(\|(u^*)'\|_{L^p(0,m)}\leq\|u'\|_{L^p(0,m)}.\) Things are not so simple with rearrangements of functionals containing second derivatives. The author offers, among others, the following result: Let \(u\) be a nonnegative function from BV\(^2(0,m)\). Then so is \(u^*\) and \(\|D^2 (u^*)\|_{L^p(0,m)}\leq \|D^2 u\|_{L^p(0,m)}\).