On weakly non-decreasable quasiconformal mappings (Q643589)

Let \(f\) be a quasiconformal mapping of the unit disk \(\mathbb{D}\) onto itself. The Teichmüller equivalence class \([f]\) of \(f\) consists of all quasiconformal mappings \(g\) of \(\mathbb{D}\) such that \(g|_{\partial\mathbb{D}} = f|_{\partial \mathbb{D}}\). A mapping \(f\) is called extremal if \(K(g) \geq K(f)\) for all \(g \in [f]\). Here, \(K(f)\) refers to the maximal dilatation of the mapping \(f\). In 1997, \textit{E. Reich} [in: Quasiconformal mappings and analysis. A collection of papers honoring Frederick W. Gehring to his 70th birthday. New York, NY: Springer. 321--335 (1998; Zbl 0909.30015)] introduced a new concept in this framework: \(f\) is said to have a non-decreasable dilatation if for each \(g \in [f]\), \( |\mu_g(z)| \leq |\mu_f(z)|\) a.e. implies \(g = f\), where \(\mu_f\) denotes the Beltrami coefficient of \(f\). The authors introduce a weaker concept as follows. A mapping \(f\) has a strongly decreasable dilatation if there exists \(g \in [f]\) such that \( |\mu_g(z)| \leq |\mu_f(z)|\) holds a.e. and there are a subdomain \(G \subset D\) and \(\delta > 0\) with the property \(|\mu_g(z)| \leq |\mu_f(z)| - \delta\) a.e. in \(G\). Now \(f\) has a weakly non-decreasable dilatation if \(f\) does not have a strongly decreasable dilatation. In other words, \(f\) has a weakly non-decreasable dilatation if \(f\) has a a non-decreasable dilatation or \(f\) has a decreasable dilatation but not a strongly decreasable dilatation. The authors prove that for each extremal quasiconformal mapping \(f\) of \(D\) onto itself, there exists an extremal map \(h \in [f]\) with weakly non-decreasable dilatation. It is not known if this holds when `weakly' is omitted. The paper contains several useful examples.