Duality of capacities and Sobolev extendability in the plane (Q2040227)

Let \(\Omega\) be a Jordan domain in the plane, let \(z,w\in\Omega\) and let \(p\in (1,2]\). The \(p\)-subhyperbolic distance in \(\Omega\) is defined by \[d_{p}(z,w)=\inf_{\gamma}\int_{\gamma}\mathrm{dist}(\zeta,\partial\Omega)^{1-p}ds(\zeta),\] where the infimum is taken over all rectifiable arcs in \(\Omega\) joining \(z\) and \(w\). The \(p\)-capacity distance in \(\Omega\) is defined by \[\mu_{p}(z,w)=\inf_{\gamma}\mathrm{Cap}_{p}(\gamma,\partial\Omega,\Omega),\] where the infimum is taken over all arcs in \(\Omega\) joining \(z\) and \(w\). In the paper under review the author studies the relation of the above distances. In the first result it is proved that, if \(\gamma\) is the hyperbolic geodesic with respect to \(\Omega\) joining \(z\) and \(w\), the quantities \(d_{p}(z,w)\), \(\mu_{p}(z,w)\), \[\int_{\gamma}\mathrm{dist}(\zeta,\partial\Omega)^{1-p}ds(\zeta),\] and \(\mathrm{Cap}_{p}(\gamma,\partial\Omega,\Omega)\) are comparable, with constants depending only on \(p\). In the second result it is assumed that \(\Omega\) is a \(W^{1,p}\)-extension domain, where \(p\in(2,\infty)\); that is, every function \(u\) in the Sobolev space \(W^{1,p}(\Omega)\) has an extension \(Eu\in W^{1,p}(\mathbb{R}^{2})\) and \(E:W^{1,p}(\Omega)\to W^{1,p}(\mathbb{R}^{2})\) is a bounded operator. Then it is proved that there exists \(C\geq 2\) depending only on \(\|E\|\) and \(p\), such that for every \(z,w\in\Omega\) there exists an arc \(\gamma\) joining \(z\) and \(w\) in \(\Omega\) and satisfying \[\int_{\gamma}\mathrm{dist}(\zeta,\partial\Omega)^{\frac{1}{p-1}}ds(\zeta)\leq C |z-w|^{\frac{p-2}{p-1}}.\]