The Sobolev Jordan-Schönflies problem (Q2679880)

The paper is devoted to the Sobolev Jordan-Schönflies problem of extending a boundary homeomorphism from the boundary of \(\mathbb D=\{z\in\mathbb C:|z|<1\}\) onto a boundary of a bounded Jordan domain \(\mathbb Y\) as a Sobolev homeomorphism of \(\mathbb C\). Let \(\mathcal W^{1,p}(\mathbb D,\mathbb C)\), \(p\geq1\), denote the Sobolev class. The authors prove the following theorems. Theorem 1.2. For \(p\geq1\) there exists a Jordan domain \(\mathbb Y\) and a homeomorphism \(\varphi\) from \(\partial\mathbb D\) onto \(\partial\mathbb Y\) which admits a continuous \(\mathcal W^{1,p}\)-Sobolev extension but does not admit a homeomorphic extension \(h\) from \(\mathbb C\) onto \(\mathbb C\) in the Sobolev class \(\mathcal W^{1,p}_{\mathrm{loc}}(\mathbb C,\mathbb C)\). Theorem 1.3. Let \(p\geq1\) and \(\partial\mathbb Y\) be a quasicircle. If a homeomorphism \(\varphi\) from \(\partial\mathbb D\) onto \(\partial\mathbb Y\) admits a Sobolev extension to \(\mathbb D\) in \(\mathcal W^{1,p}_{\mathrm{loc}}(\mathbb D,\mathbb C)\), then it admits a homeomorphism \(h\) from \(\mathbb C\) onto \(\mathbb C\) in the Sobolev class \(\mathcal W^{1,p}_{\mathrm{loc}}(\mathbb C,\mathbb C)\). Also, it is shown that the Dirichlet integral (\(p=2\)) plays a unique role in the case of cusp targets. The target \(\mathbb Y\) which has piecewise smooth boundary is considered in the main problem. Finally, it is proved that the harmonic extension of \(\varphi\) from \(\partial\mathbb D\) onto \(\partial\mathbb Y\) has a finite Dirichlet integral if and only if \(\varphi\) admits a homeomorphic extension \(h\) from \(\overline{\mathbb D}\) onto \(\overline{\mathbb Y}\) with finite Dirichlet energy.