We characterize compact metric spaces whose locally flat Lipschitz functions separate points uniformly as exactly those that are purely 1-unrectifiable, resolving a problem of Weaver. We subsequently use this geometric characterization to answer several questions in Lipschitz analysis. Notably, it follows that the Lipschitz-free space $\mathcal{F}(M)$ over a compact metric space $M$ is a dual space if and only if $M$ is purely 1-unrectifiable. Furthermore, we establish a compact determinacy principle for the Radon-Nikodým property (RNP) and deduce that, for any complete metric space $M$, pure 1-unrectifiability is actually equivalent to some well-known Banach space properties of $\mathcal{F}(M)$ such as the RNP and the Schur property. A direct consequence is that any complete, purely 1-unrectifiable metric space isometrically embeds into a Banach space with the RNP. Finally, we provide a possible solution to a problem of Whitney by finding a rectifiability-based description of 1-critical compact metric spaces, and we use this description to prove the following: a bounded turning tree fails to be 1-critical if and only if each of its subarcs has $σ$-finite Hausdorff 1-measure.
We construct a (Lipschitz) differentiability space which has at generic points a disconnected tangent and thus does not contain positive measure subsets isometric to positive measure subsets of spaces admitting a Poincaré inequality. We also prove that $l^2$-valued Lipschitz maps are differentiable a.e., but there are also Lipschitz maps taking values in some other Banach spaces having the Radon-Nikodym property which fail to be differentiable on sets of positive measure.
We characterise purely $n$-unrectifiable subsets $S$ of a complete metric space $X$ with finite Hausdorff $n$-measure by studying arbitrarily small perturbations of elements of the set of all bounded 1-Lipschitz functions $f\colon X \to \mathbb R^m$ with respect to the supremum norm. In one such characterisation it is shown that, if $S$ has positive lower density almost everywhere, then the set of all $f$ with $\mathcal H^n(f(S))=0$ is residual. Conversely, if $E\subset X$ is $n$-rectifiable with $\mathcal H^n(E)>0$, the set of all $f$ with $\mathcal H^n(f(E))>0$ is residual. These results pro…
In this paper we prove that the typical Lipschitz function has no directional derivative at any point of a Borel set $E$ if and only if $E$ is contained in a countable union of closed purely unrectifiable sets.
We construct in $\mathbb{R}^{k+2}$ a $k$-dimensional simple normal current whose support is purely $2$-unrectifiable. The result is sharp because the support of a normal current cannot be purely $1$-unrectifiable and a $(k+1)$-dimensional normal current can be represented as an integral of $(k+1)$-rectifiable currents. This gives a negative answer to the (revised version) of a question of Frank Morgan (1984).
We first identify (up to linear isomorphism) the Lipschitz free spaces of quasiarcs. By decomposing quasiconformal trees into quasiarcs as done in an article of David, Eriksson-Bique, and Vellis, we then identify the Lipschitz free spaces of quasiconformal trees and prove that quasiconformal trees have Lipschitz dimension 1. Generalizing the aforementioned decomposition, we define a geometric tree-like decomposition of a metric space. Our results pertaining to quasiconformal trees are in fact special cases of results about metric spaces admitting a geometric tree-like decomposition. Furthermor…
This paper is related to the problem of finding a good notion of rectifiability in sub-Riemannian geometry. In particular, we study which kind of results can be expected for smooth hypersurfaces in Carnot groups. Our main contribution will be a consequence of the following result: there exists a $C^{\infty}$ hypersurface $S$ without characteristic points that has uncountably many pairwise non-isomorphic tangent groups on every positive-measure subset. The example is found in a Carnot group of topological dimension 8, it has Hausdorff dimension 12 and so we use on it the Hausdorff measure $\mat…
The Besicovitch projection theorem states that if a subset $E$ of the plane has finite length in the sense of Hausdorff measure and is purely unrectifiable (so its intersection with any Lipschitz graph has zero length), then almost every orthogonal projection of $E$ to a line will have zero measure. In other words, the Favard length of a purely unrectifiable $1$-set vanishes. In this article, we show that when linear projections are replaced by certain nonlinear projections called curve projections, this result remains true. In fact, we go further and use multiscale analysis to prove a quantit…
By using a multiscale analysis, we establish quantitative versions of the Besicovitch projection theorem (almost every projection of a purely unrectifiable set in the plane of finite length has measure zero) and a standard companion result, namely that any planar set with at least two projections of measure zero is purely unrectifiable. We illustrate these results by providing an explicit (but weak) upper bound on the average projection of the $n^{th}$ generation of a product Cantor set.
We study Lipschitz differentiability spaces, a class of metric measure spaces introduced by Cheeger. We show that if an Ahlfors regular Lipschitz differentiability space has charts of maximal dimension, then, at almost every point, all its tangents are uniformly rectifiable. In particular, at almost every point, such a space admits a tangent that is isometric to a finite-dimensional Banach space. In contrast, we also show that if an Ahlfors regular Lipschitz differentiability space has charts of non-maximal dimension, then these charts are strongly unrectifiable in the sense of Ambrosio-Kirchh…
One goal of geometric measure theory is to understand how measures in the plane or higher dimensional Euclidean space interact with families of lower dimensional sets. An important dichotomy arises between the class of rectifiable measures, which give full measure to a countable union of the lower dimensional sets, and the class of purely unrectifiable measures, which assign measure zero to each distinguished set. There are several commonly used definitions of rectifiable and purely unrectifiable measures in the literature (using different families of lower dimensional sets such as Lipschitz i…
It is unknown if there exists a locally $α$-Hölder homeomorphism $f:\mathbb{R}^3\to \mathbb{H}^1$ for any $\frac{1}{2}< α\le \frac{2}{3}$, although the identity map $\mathbb{R}^3\to \mathbb{H}^1$ is locally $\frac{1}{2}$-Hölder. More generally, Gromov asked: Given $k$ and a Carnot group $G$, for which $α$ does there exist a locally $α$-Hölder homeomorphism $f:\mathbb{R}^k\to G$? Here, we equip a Carnot group $G$ with the Carnot-Carathéodory metric. In 2014, Balogh, Hajlasz, and Wildrick considered a variant of this problem. These authors proved that if $k>n$, there does not exist an injective,…
A quasiconformal tree is a doubling metric tree in which the diameter of each arc is bounded above by a fixed multiple of the distance between its endpoints. We study the geometry of these trees in two directions. First, we construct a catalog of metric trees in a purely combinatorial way, and show that every quasiconformal tree is bi-Lipschitz equivalent to one of the trees in our catalog. This is inspired by results of Herron-Meyer and Rohde for quasi-arcs. Second, we show that a quasiconformal tree bi-Lipschitz embeds in a Euclidean space if and only if its set of leaves admits such an embe…
A theorem of Dorronsoro from 1985 quantifies the fact that a Lipschitz function $f \colon \mathbb{R}^{n} \to \mathbb{R}$ can be approximated by affine functions almost everywhere, and at sufficiently small scales. This paper contains a new, purely geometric, proof of Dorronsoro's theorem. In brief, it reduces the problem in $\mathbb{R}^{n}$ to a problem in $\mathbb{R}^{n - 1}$ via integralgeometric considerations. For the case $n = 1$, a short geometric proof already exists in the literature. A similar proof technique applies to parabolic Lipschitz functions $f \colon \mathbb{R}^{n - 1} \times…
We prove that the class of reflexive asymptotic-$c_0$ Banach spaces is coarsely rigid, meaning that if a Banach space $X$ coarsely embeds into a reflexive asymptotic-$c_0$ space $Y$, then $X$ is also reflexive and asymptotic-$c_0$. In order to achieve this result we provide a purely metric characterization of this class of Banach spaces. This metric characterization takes the form of a concentration inequality for Lipschitz maps on the Hamming graphs, which is rigid under coarse embeddings. Using an example of a quasi-reflexive asymptotic-$c_0$ space, we show that this concentration inequality…
We prove that on compact Alexandrov spaces with curvature bounded below the gradient flow of the Dirichlet energy in the $L^2$-space produces the same evolution as the gradient flow of the relative entropy in the $L^2$-Wasserstein space. This means that the heat flow is well defined by either one of the two gradient flows. Combining properties of these flows, we are able to deduce the Lipschitz continuity of the heat kernel as well as Bakry-Émery gradient estimates and the $Γ_2$-condition. Our identification is established by purely metric means, unlike preceding results relying on PDE techniq…
We investigate the box dimensions of the horizon of a fractal surface defined by a function $f \in C[0,1]^2 $. In particular we show that a prevalent surface satisfies the `horizon property', namely that the box dimension of the horizon is one less than that of the surface. Since a prevalent surface has box dimension 3, this does not give us any information about the horizon of surfaces of dimension strictly less than 3. To examine this situation we introduce spaces of functions with surfaces of upper box dimension at most α, for α$\in$ [2,3). In this setting the behaviour of the horizon is mo…
