Regularity of the local fractional maximal function (Q2018124)

This paper studies smoothness of the local fractional maximal function \[ \mathcal{M}_{\alpha, \Omega}u(x) = \sup_{0 < r < \text{dist}(x,\mathbb{R}^n\setminus\Omega )} \frac{r^\alpha}{|B(x,r)|} \int_{B(x,r)} |u(y)| \, dy , \] with \(\alpha \geq 0\), on an open proper subset \(\Omega\) of \(\mathbb{R}^n\), \(n\geq 2\). One of the main results is a pointwise estimate for the gradient \(D\mathcal{M}_{\alpha, \Omega}u\). It states that if \(p>n/(n-1)\) and \[ 1 \leq \alpha < \min \Big\{ \frac{n-1}{p}, n-\frac{2n}{(n-1)p} \Big\} + 1 , \] then \[ |D\mathcal{M}_{\alpha,\Omega} u(x)| \leq C (\mathcal{M}_{\alpha-1,\Omega}u(x) + \mathcal{S}_{\alpha-1,\Omega}u(x)) \] for almost every \(x\in\Omega\), where \(C\) is a dimensional constant. Here an unexpected feature is the appearance of the local \textit{spherical} fractional maximal function \[ \mathcal{S}_{\alpha -1, \Omega}u(x) = \sup_{0 < r < \text{dist}(x,\mathbb{R}^n\setminus\Omega )} \frac{r^\alpha}{\mathcal{H}^{n-1}(\partial B(x,r))} \int_{\partial B(x,r)} |u(y)| \, d\mathcal{H}^{n-1} (y) \] (\(\mathcal{H}^{n-1}\) stands for the \((n-1)\)-dimensional Hausdorff measure). Another main result, a variant of the estimate above, concerns subsets \(\Omega\) with finite measure and states that if \(1 < p < n\) and \(1\leq \alpha < n/p\), then \[ |D\mathcal{M}_{\alpha,\Omega}u(x)| \leq 2\mathcal{M}_{\alpha,\Omega} |Du|(x) + \alpha \mathcal{M}_{\alpha - 1,\Omega}u(x) \] for almost every \(x\in\Omega\). In addition, the authors construct several explicit examples, which show that the results are essentially optimal. Extensions to doubling metric measure spaces are also discussed, in particular, certain mapping properties for the local discrete fractional maximal operator are proved.