Quasiconformal planes with bi-Lipschitz pieces and extensions of almost affine maps (Q2018672)

This article continues the study of under which circumstances and to what extent one can control the distortion of geometry by quasiconformal maps. Especially, it finds conditions that ensure that a quasiplane is rectifiable, or at least, ensure that a quasiplane contains nontrivial rectifiable sets. A quasiplane \(f(V)\) is the image of an \(n\)-dimensional Euclidean subspace \(V\subset \mathbb{R}^N,\) \(1\leq n\leq N-1,\) under a quasiconformal map \(f: \mathbb{R}^N\to \mathbb{R}^N\). When \(n=N-1,\) a quasiplane \(f(V)\) is the unbounded variant of a quasisphere \(g(S^{N-1}),\) which is the image of the unit sphere \(S^{N-1}\) under a quasiconformal map \(g: \mathbb{R}^N\to \mathbb{R}^N\). \textit{M. Badger} et al. [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 366, No. 3, 1413--1431 (2014; Zbl 1291.30129)] gave sufficient condition for a quasisphere \(f(S^{N-1})\) to be \((N-1)\)-rectifiable. In the present article the authors generalize this and give sufficient conditions in terms of the weak quasisymmetry constant of the underlying map \(f\) for a quasiplane \(f(\mathbb{R}^n)\), \(1\leq n \leq N-1\), to be \(n\)-rectifiable. The weak quasisymmetry constant \(H_f(X)\in [1,\infty]\) of \(f\) in \(X\subset \mathbb{R}^N\) is the least constant such that, for all \(x,y,a \in X,\) \[ |x-a|\leq |y-a| \Longrightarrow |f(x)-f(a)|\leq H_f(X) |f(y)-f(a)|. \] The main result states that if \(1\leq n \leq N-1\), \( f: \mathbb{R}^N\to \mathbb{R}^N\) is quasiconformal and \[ \int_0^1\sup_{x\in\overline{B}^n(x_0,1)}(H_f(\overline{B}^N(x,r))-1)^2\frac{dr}{r} < \infty \quad \text{for all } x_0\in \mathbb{R}^n, \] then the quasiplane \(f(\mathbb{R}^n)\) is locally \((1+\delta)\)-bi-Lipschitz equivalent to a subset of \(\mathbb{R}^n\) for all \(\delta>0\). Consequently, \(f(\mathbb{R})\) is \(n\)-rectifiable. The exponent \(2\) in the integral condition is sharp: it cannot be replaced by \(2+\epsilon\). The case \(n=N-1\) was already proven by Badger et al. [loc. cit.]. There a refinement of \textit{I. Prause}'s estimate in [Comput. Methods Funct. Theory 7, No. 2, 527--541 (2007; Zbl 1135.30309)] was given, but here this approach has limitations. Instead the authors use the more flexible parameterization theorem from [\textit{G. David} and \textit{T. Toro}, Mem. Am. Math. Soc. 1012 (2012; Zbl 1236.28002)]. The other main result of this article shows how a modification of the integral condition above still guarantees that a quasiplane contains big pieces of rectifiable sets. Thus it says that if \(2 \leq n \leq N-1\) and there exists a constant \(C_f>0\) such that for all \(x_0\in \mathbb{R}^n\) and \(r_0>0\), \[ \int_{\overline{B}^n(x_0,r_0)}\int^{r_0}_0(H_f(\overline{B}^N(x,r))-1)^2\frac{dr}{r}\,d\mathcal{L}^n(x)\leq C_f\mathcal{L}^n(\overline{B}^n(x_0,r_0)), \] where \(\mathcal{L}^n\) denotes Lebesgue measure on \(\mathbb{R}^n,\) then the quasiplane \(f(\mathbb{R}^n)\) contains big pieces of bi-Lipschitz images of \(\mathbb{R}^n\). Proving this the authors develop a tool for extending quasisymmetric mappings that are locally ``almost affine'', and this extension result is of independent interest too. It is not known whether this theorem holds when \(n=1\).