Local Lipschitz numbers and Sobolev spaces (Q2470252)

A new version of the theorems about differentiability of functions almost everywhere (due to Rademacher and Stepanov) for metric measure spaces is given. The following terminology is used. Let \({(X,d)}\) be a metric space and \(f\) a real-valued continuous function on \(X\). For each point \({x\in X}\) the lower pointwise infinitesimal Lipschitz number is defined as \[ l_f(x):=\liminf_{r\to 0}\frac{\sup_{d(x,y)\leq r}| f(y)-f(x)| }{r}. \] We say that a metric space is proper if closed balls are compact. The triple \({(X,d,\mu)}\) denotes a metric measure space, that is, a metric space equipped with a measure. We say that \({(X,d,\mu)}\) is \(Q\)-regular if \[ ar^Q\leq \mu(B(x,r))\leq Ar^Q \;\text{ for any ball } B(x,r)\subset X \text{ with } r<\operatorname{diam} X \] for suitable constants \({a,A>0}\). The Newtonian space corresponding to the index \(p\) (\({1\leq p<\infty}\)) is denoted by \({N^{1,p}(X)}\). This space is a generalization of the Sobolev space to the metric space setting. The main result is in Theorem~1.3. Let \({(X,d,\mu)}\) be a \(Q\)-regular and proper metric measure space, where \({Q>1}\). Suppose that \({1\leq q\leq p}\) and that \({(X,d,\mu)}\) supports a \({(1,q)}\)-Poincaré inequality. Assume that \({f:X\to\mathbb R}\) is continuous and that \({l_f(x)<\infty}\) for \({X\setminus E}\), where \(E\) has \(\sigma\)-finite \({(Q-q)}\)-dimensional Hausdorff measure. If \(l_f\) is in \({L^p_{\text{loc}}(X)}\), then \(f\) is in the Newtonian space \({N^{1,p}_{\text{loc}}(X)}\). This generalizes and improves some results of the papers [\textit{Z. M. Balogh} and \textit{M. Csörnyei}, Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 134, No. 9, 2667--2675 (2006; Zbl 1100.26007) and \textit{Z. M. Balogh, K. Rogovin} and \textit{T. Zürcher}, J. Geom. Anal. 14, No. 3, 405--422 (2004; Zbl 1069.28001)].