\(k\)-plane transforms and related operators on radial functions (Q5954598)

The authors obtain the sharp mixed-norm bounds for the \(k\)-plane transform \[ Tf(x,\pi) = \int_{x + \pi} f \] on radial functions \(f\), where \(f\) is a (continuous) function on \(\mathbb R^n\), \(\pi\) ranges over the Grassmannian \(Gr(n,k)\) of \(k\)-dimensional subspaces of \(\mathbb R^n\), and \(x\) lies in \(\mathbb R^n\). An important question is to classify those exponents \(p\),\(q\),\(r\), such that \(T\) maps \(L^p\) to the mixed-norm space \(L^r_\pi(L^q_x)\). In general, this problem is very difficult, connected for instance with the Kakeya conjecture. However, for radial functions the problem is somewhat simpler, and the authors obtain the sharp range of boundedness, namely, that the operator is bounded if and only if \(1 \leq r \leq \infty\), \(1 \leq p < n/k\), and \(n/p - (n-k)/q = k\) (the latter condition being dictated by scaling). When one interchanges the norms, thus \(L^q_x(L^r_\pi)\), one obtains similar results as long as \(1 < p < n/k\), \(n/p-n/q = k\), and \((n-k)/r > n/p-k\). Some companion results relating to fractional integral analogues of these \(k\)-plane transforms are also given. The main idea of the proof is to observe that in the case of radial functions one can control \(T\) adequately by the one-dimensional Hardy-Littlewood maximal function.