Mappings of generalized finite distortion and continuity

Abstract: We study continuity properties of Sobolev mappings $f \in W_{\mathrm{loc}}^{1,n} (\Omega, \mathbb{R}^n)$, $n \ge 2$, that satisfy the following generalized finite distortion inequality [\lvert Df(x)\rvert^n \leq K(x) J_f(x) + \Sigma (x)] for almost every $x \in \mathbb{R}^n$. Here $K \colon \Omega \to [1, \infty)$ and $\Sigma \colon \Omega \to [0, \infty)$ are measurable functions. Note that when $\Sigma \equiv 0$, we recover the class of mappings of finite distortion, which are always continuous. The continuity of arbitrary solutions, however, turns out to be an intricate question. We fully solve the continuity problem in the case of bounded distortion $K \in L^\infty (\Omega)$, where a sharp condition for continuity is that $\Sigma$ is in the Zygmund space $\Sigma \log^\mu(e + \Sigma) \in L^1_{\mathrm{loc}}(\Omega)$ for some $\mu > n-1$. We also show that one can slightly relax the boundedness assumption on $K$ to an exponential class $\exp(\lambda K) \in L^1_{\mathrm{loc}}(\Omega)$ with $\lambda > n+1$, and still obtain continuous solutions when $\Sigma \log^\mu(e + \Sigma) \in L^1_{\mathrm{loc}}(\Omega)$ with $\mu > \lambda$. On the other hand, for all $p, q \in [1, \infty]$ with $p^{-1} + q^{-1} = 1$, we construct a discontinuous solution with $K \in L^p_{\mathrm{loc}}(\Omega)$ and $\Sigma/K \in L^q_{\mathrm{loc}}(\Omega)$, including an example with $\Sigma \in L^\infty_{\mathrm{loc}}(\Omega)$ and $K \in L^1_{\mathrm{loc}}(\Omega)$.