A planar Sobolev extension theorem for piecewise linear homeomorphisms (Q2629765)

Let \(Q\subset \mathbb R^2\) be the unit square. The author proves the following theorem. Theorem. Let \(\varphi:\partial Q\to\mathbb R^2\) be a piecewise affine homeomorphism. Then there exists a piecewise affine homeomorphism \(h:Q\to\mathbb R^2\) that satisfies \(h\equiv\varphi\) on \(\partial Q\), and for \(p\geq 1\) there is a constant depending only on \(p\) such that \[ \|Dh\|_{L_p(Q)} \leq K\|D\varphi\|_{L_p(\partial Q)}. \] The result was proved before in the cases \(p=\infty\) and \(p=1\)\ (see [\textit{S. Daneri} and \textit{A. Pratelli}, Adv. Calc. Var. 8, No. 3, 221--266 (2015; Zbl 1331.26020)] and [\textit{S. Hencl} and \textit{A. Pratelli}, ``Diffeomorphic approximation of \(W^{1,1}\) planar Sobolev homeomorphisms'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1502.07253}]). The original motivation for this work goes back to the problem of finding an approximation of a planar homeomorphism \(f:\Omega\to\mathbb R^2\). In brief the standard approach is to split \(\Omega\) into a countable disjoint union of simple polygons by introducing a one-dimensional grid. In the first step, a linear approximation of \(f\) is defined on the grid. Then, in the second step, the approximation is extended in the interior of each polygon. In the paper the author deals with the second step and provides a constructive proof of the existence of a correct extension. We point out that the proof is mostly based on geometric reasoning and thus contains quite cumbersome passages, though the presence of figures helps a lot.