A Marcinkiewicz integral type characterization of the Sobolev space (Q517514)

A classical characterization of the Sobolev space \(W^{1,p}(\mathbb{R})\), due to [\textit{A. Zygmund}, Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 55, 170--204 (1944; Zbl 0061.13902); \textit{D. Waterman}, ibid. 91, 129--138 (1959; Zbl 0087.06301)], states that \(f\in W^{1,p}(\mathbb{R})\), \(p\in(1,\infty)\), if and only if \(f\in L^p(\mathbb{R})\) and \(T(f)\in L^p(\mathbb{R})\), where \(T(f)\) denotes the Marcinkiewicz integral \[ T(f)(x)=\left(\int_0^\infty |f(x+t)+f(x-t)-2f(x)|^2\,\frac{dt}{t^3}\right)^{1/2}. \] In [Bull. Am. Math. Soc. 67, 102--104 (1962; Zbl 0127.32002)], \textit{E. M. Stein} generalized this result to higher dimensions in the sense that, for any \(p\in(\frac{2n}{n+1},\infty)\), \(f\in W^{1,p}(\mathbb{R}^n)\) if and only if \(f\in L^p(\mathbb{R}^n)\) and \[ \left(\int_{\mathbb{R}^n} |f(x+y)+f(x-y)-2f(x)|^2\,\frac{dy}{|y|^{n+2}}\right)^{1/2}\in L^p(\mathbb{R}^n). \] This paper provides a different way to generalize the classical result of Zygmund and Waterman to higher dimensions, which is valid for the full range \(p\in(1,\infty)\). Indeed, it is proved in this paper that for any \(f\in L^p(\mathbb{R}^n)\) with \(p\in(1,\infty)\), \(f\in W^{1,p}(\mathbb{R}^n)\) if and only if \[ \widetilde{T}f(x)=\left(\int_0^\infty |f(x)-f_{S(x,t)}|^2\,\frac{dt}{t^3}\right)^{1/2}\in L^p(\mathbb{R}^n), \] where \(S(x,t)\) denotes the \((n-1)\)-dimensional sphere centered at \(x\) with radius \(t\), and \(f_{S(x,t)}\)the integral of \(f\) over \(S(x,t)\). Besides this, the authors also provide a new and simple proof for a recent result by \textit{R. Alabern} et al. [Math. Ann. 354, No. 2, 589--626 (2012; Zbl 1267.46048)], who obtained a similar characterization of \(W^{1,p}(\mathbb{R}^n)\) as above with the spherical integral over \(S(x,t)\) in \(\widetilde{T}f(x)\) replaced by the ball integral average over the ball \(B(x,t)\).