Sobolev Regularity of the Beurling Transform on Planar Domains

Abstract

Consider a Lipschitz domain $\Omega$ and the Beurling transform of its characteristic function ${\mathcal B} \chi_\Omega(z)= - \text{p.v.}\frac1{\pi z^2}*\chi_\Omega (z) $. It is shown that if the outward unit normal vector $N$ of the boundary of the domain is in the trace space of $W^{n,p}(\Omega)$ (i.e., the Besov space $B^{n-1/p}_{p,p}(\partial\Omega)$) then $\mathcal{B} \chi_\Omega \in W^{n,p}(\Omega)$. Moreover, when $p>2$ the boundedness of the Beurling transform on $W^{n,p}(\Omega)$ follows. This fact has far-reaching consequences in the study of the regularity of quasiconformal solutions of the Beltrami equation.