Weighted composition operators preserving various Lipschitz constants

TL;DR

This paper characterizes weighted composition operators that preserve various Lipschitz constants, showing they must be essentially affine transformations with specific scalar factors and constant weights.

Contribution

It provides a complete characterization of Lipschitz constant-preserving bijections as affine transformations with scalar dilation and constant weights, extending previous results to multiple Lipschitz spaces.

Findings

Such operators are affine transformations with scalar dilation and constant weights.

Preserving Lipschitz constants implies the operator's structure is highly restricted.

Results apply to Lipschitz spaces on metric and normed linear spaces, including Euclidean spaces.

Abstract

Let $\mathrm{Lip}(X)$, $\mathrm{Lip}^b(X)$, $\mathrm{Lip}^{\mathrm{loc}}(X)$ and $\mathrm{Lip}^\mathrm{pt}(X)$ be the vector spaces of Lipschitz, bounded Lipschitz, locally Lipschitz and pointwise Lipschitz (real-valued) functions defined on a metric space $(X, d_X)$, respectively. We show that if a weighted composition operator $Tf=h\cdot f\circ \varphi$ defines a bijection between such vector spaces preserving Lipschitz constants, local Lipschitz constants or pointwise Lipschitz constants, then $h= \pm1/\alpha$ is a constant function for some scalar $\alpha>0$ and $\varphi$ is an $\alpha$-dilation. Let $U$ be open connected and $V$ be open, or both $U,V$ are convex bodies, in normed linear spaces $E, F$, respectively. Let $Tf=h\cdot f\circ\varphi$ be a bijective weighed composition operator between the vector spaces $\mathrm{Lip}(U)$ and $\mathrm{Lip}(V)$, $\mathrm{Lip}^b(U)$ and $\mathrm{Lip}^b(V)$, $\mathrm{Lip}^\mathrm{loc}(U)$ and $\mathrm{Lip}^\mathrm{loc}(V)$, or $\mathrm{Lip}^\mathrm{pt}(U)$ and $\mathrm{Lip}^\mathrm{pt}(V)$, preserving the Lipschitz, locally Lipschitz, or pointwise Lipschitz constants, respectively. We show that there is a linear isometry $A: F\to E$, an $\alpha>0$ and a vector $b\in E$ such that $\varphi(x)=\alpha Ax + b$, and $h$ is a constant function assuming value $\pm 1/\alpha$. More concrete results are obtained for the special cases when $E=F=\mathbb{R}^n$, or when $U,V$ are $n$-dimensional flat manifolds.