Smooth quasiregular maps with branching in \(\mathbf R^n\) (Q2388281)

A continuous mapping \(f: D \to {\mathbb R}^n,\;D \subset {\mathbb R}^n\) a domain, is \(K\)-quasiregular if \(f \in W^{1,n}_{\text{loc}}(D)\) and \(| f'(x)| \leq KJ(x,f)\) a.e. It was shown in [\textit{O. Martio, S. Rickman} and \textit{J. Väisälä}, Ann. Acad. Sci. Fenn., Ser. A I 488, 1--31 (1971; Zbl 0223.30018)] that if \(n \geq 3\) and \(f \in C^{n/(n-2)}\), then a quasiregular mapping is a local homeomorphism or constant. For \(n = 3\) the \(C^{n/(n-2)}\)-condition was shown to be sharp in [\textit{M. Bonk} and \textit{J. Heinonen}, Publ. Math. Inst. Hautes Étud. Sci. 100, 153--170 (2004; Zbl 1063.30021)]. For \(n \geq 5\) the authors show that there exists \(\varepsilon = \varepsilon (n) > 0\) and a \(C^{1+\varepsilon}\)-smooth quasiregular mapping \(f: {\mathbb R}^n \to {\mathbb R}^n\) whose branch set is homeomorphic to \({\mathbb R}^{n-2}\). The construction is complicated and uses the affine approximation properties of quasisymmetric mappings on compact sets [see \textit{J. Väisälä}, Ann. Acad. Sci. Fenn. Ser. A I, Math. 11, 239--244 (1986; Zbl 0607.30019)].