A noninequality for the fractional gradient (Q2178384)

Summary: In this paper we give a streamlined proof of an inequality recently obtained by the author: For every \(\alpha \in (0, 1)\) there exists a constant \(C=C(\alpha, d) > 0\) such that \[\|u\|_{L^{d/(d-\alpha), 1}(\mathbb{R}^d)} \leq C\|D^\alpha u\|_{L^1(\mathbb{R}^d; \mathbb{R}^d)}\] for all \(u \in L^q(\mathbb{R}^d)\) for some \(1 \leq q < d/(1-\alpha)\) such that \(D^\alpha u:=\nabla I_{1-\alpha} u \in L^1(\mathbb{R}^d; \mathbb{R}^d)\). We also give a counterexample which shows that in contrast to the case \(\alpha =1\), the fractional gradient does not admit an \(L^1\) trace inequality, i.e., \(\| D^\alpha u\|_{L^1(\mathbb{R}^d; \mathbb{R}^d)}\) cannot control the integral of \(u\) with respect to the Hausdorff content \(\mathscr{H}^{d-\alpha}_\infty\). The main substance of this counterexample is a result of interest in its own right, that even a weak-type estimate for the Riesz transforms fails on the space \(L^1(\mathscr{H}^{d-\beta}_\infty), \beta \in [1, d)\). It is an open question whether this failure of a weak-type estimate for the Riesz transforms extends to \(\beta \in (0, 1)\).