Newtonian Spaces Based on Quasi-Banach Function Lattices

Sammanfattning: The traditional first-order analysis in Euclidean spaces relies on the Sobolev spaces W1,p(?), where ? ? Rn is open and p ? [1, ?].The Sobolev norm is then defined as the sum of Lp norms of a function and its distributional gradient.We generalize the notion of Sobolev spaces in two different ways. First, the underlying function norm will be replaced by the “norm” of a quasi-Banach function lattice. Second, we will investigate functions defined on an abstract metric measure space and that is why the distributional gradients need to be substituted.The thesis consists of two papers. The first one builds up the elementary theory of Newtonian spaces based on quasi-Banach function lattices. These lattices are complete linear spaces of measurable functions with a topology given by a quasinorm satisfying the lattice property. Newtonian spaces are first-order Sobolev-type spaces on abstract metric measure spaces, where the role of weak derivatives is passed on to upper gradients. Tools such asmoduli of curve families and the Sobolev capacity are developed, which allows us to study basic properties of the Newtonian functions.We will see that Newtonian spaces can be equivalently defined using the notion of weak upper gradients, which increases the number of techniques available to study these spaces. The absolute continuity of Newtonian functions along curves and the completeness of Newtonian spaces in this general setting are also established.The second paper in the thesis then continues with investigation of properties of Newtonian spaces based on quasi-Banach function lattices. The set of all weak upper gradients of a Newtonian function is of particular interest.We will prove that minimalweak upper gradients exist in this general setting.Assuming that Lebesgue’s differentiation theoremholds for the underlyingmetricmeasure space,wewill find a family of representation formulae. Furthermore, the connection between pointwise convergence of a sequence of Newtonian functions and its convergence in norm is studied.