Sharp inequalities for maximal operators on finite graphs (Q1979210)

Let \(G = (V, E)\) be a finite graph. To \(G\) we may associate a centered Hardy-Littlewood maximal operator \(M_G\) defined by \[M_G f (e) = \max_{r \geq 0} \frac{1}{|B(e,r)|}\sum_{m \in B(e,r)}|f(m)|\;,\]where \(f: V \rightarrow \mathbb{R}\), \(e \in V\) and \(B(e,r) = \{m \in V: d_G(e,m) \leq r\}\). Here \(d_G(x,y)\) is the number of edges in a shortest path in \(G\) connecting points \(x\) and \(y\) in \(V\). The \(p\)-variation of a function \(f: V \rightarrow \mathbb{R}\) is defined by \[Var_p f = \left(\frac{1}{2} \sum_n \sum_{m : d_G(n,m) = 1} \left|f(n) - f(m)\right|^p\right)^{\frac{1}{p}}\;.\] In this paper, the authors find the optimal value \(C_{G, p}\) such that the inequality \[Var_p M_G f \leq C_{G, p} Var_p f\] holds for every \(f: V \rightarrow \mathbb{R}\), when (i) \(G = K_n\) (the complete graph) and \(p \in [\frac{\log 4}{\log 6}, \infty)\) or \(G = K_4\) and \(p \in (0, \infty)\); (ii) \(G = S_n \)(the star graph) and \(1 \geq p \geq \frac{1}{2}\); \(p \in (0, \frac{1}{2})\) and \(n \geq C(p)\) or \(G = S_3\) and \(p \in (1, \infty)\). The authors also find the norm \(\|M_G\|_2\) when (i) \(G = K_n\) and \(n \geq 3\); (ii) \(G = S_n\) and \(n \geq 3\). Not only providing a background and historical overview related to these results, the authors also mention several open problems associated to maximal operators on finite graphs.