On ring solutions of Beltrami equations (Q816474)

Let \(D\) be a domain in the complex plane \(\mathbb{C}\) and \(\mu: D \to \mathbb{C}\) a measurable function with \(| \mu(z)| <1\) a.e. in \(D.\) The Beltrami equation is \[ f_{\overline{z}} = \mu f_z; \,\, f_{\overline{z}}=(f_x+if_y)/2, f_{{z}}=(f_x-if_y)/2\,. \] The maximal dilatation is \(K_{\mu}(z) = (1+| \mu(z)| )/(1-| \mu(z)| ).\) The equation is said to be degenerate if \(\mathrm{ess sup} \mu(z) =1 \,.\) In the non-degenerate case \(\mathrm{ess sup} \mu(z) <1 \,\) the theory of the Beltrami equation is well understood. The degenerate case has been studied by \textit{E. Reich, H. R. Walczak}, [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 117, 338--351 (1965; Zbl 0178.08301)], \textit{O. Lehto}, [Proc. 15th Scand. Congr. Oslo 1968, Lect. Notes Math. 118, 58--73 (1970; Zbl 0193.03703)] and recently by many other authors, in particular by \textit{M. A. Brakalova} and \textit{J. A. Jenkins}, [J. Anal. Math. 76, 67--92 (1998; Zbl 0921.30015)] and the present authors. It turns out that it is crucial in which way and in how large sets \(\mu(z)\) approaches \(1.\) This has been studied using instead of \(K_{\mu}(z) \) also other notions of dilatation. \textit{V. Gutlyanskii, O. Martio, T. Sugawa} and \textit{M. Vuorinen}, [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 357, No. 3, 875--900 (2005; Zbl 1066.30021)] used \[ D_{\mu,z_0}(z) ={\left| 1-\mu(z) {\bar z-\bar z_0\over z-z_0}\right| ^2\over 1-| \mu(z)| ^2} \] for this purpose. The present authors use not only this but several refined notions of dilatation and find thus a way of generalizing previous existence results for so called ring solutions of the Beltrami equation under various integrability conditions of the dilatation. An ACL map \(f\) is a ring solution if \(f^{-1} \in W_{loc}^{1,2} \) and for all annuli in \(D\) the capacity of the image is controlled in a certain way. There is a comprehensive survey of the Beltrami equation written by the two last named authors [Kühnau, R. (ed.), Handbook of complex analysis: geometric function theory. Volume 2. Amsterdam: Elsevier/North Holland, 555--597 (2005; Zbl 1078.30010)].