Optimal constant in a new estimate for the degree (Q2474577)

From the author's summary: ``In this paper, we prove the estimate \[ |\text{deg}\,g|\leq C\int\int_{x,y\in S^N,\;| g(x)-g(y)|>\delta} \frac{1}{| x-y|^{2N}}\,dx\,dy\quad\forall g\in C(S^N,S^N) \] for every \(\delta\in (0,l_N)\), where \(C=C(N)\) is a positive constant depending only on \(N\) and \(l_N=\sqrt{2+2/(N+1)}\). We show that the constant \(l_N\) in this estimate is optimal. We also present a class of maps from \(S^N\) into \(S^N\), strictly larger than \(C(S^N,S^N)\), on which we can define the notion of degree and for which the previous inequality still holds.'' Note that the optimality of a constant \(l_N\) is described in the main Theorem~1 and reads as follows: there exists a sequence \(\{g_k\}_{k\geq 1}\subset C(S^N,S^N)\) such that \(\text{deg}\,g_k=1\) for every \(k\geq 1\), and \[ \lim_{k\to\infty}\int\int_{x,y\in S^N,\;| g(x)-g(y)|>l_N}\frac{1}{| x-y| ^{2N}}\,dx\,dy=0. \] The class of maps for which the degree is defined is the class of maps \(g\in L^\infty(S^n,S^n)\) such that \[ \int\int_{x,y\in S^N,\;| g(x)-g(y)|>\delta}\frac{1}{| x-y|^{2N}}\,dx\,dy<\infty \] for some \(0<\delta<l_N\).