Layer potentials for elliptic operators with DMO-type coefficients: big pieces $Tb$ theorem, quantitative rectifiability, and free boundary problems

TL;DR

This paper develops new geometric and analytic criteria involving layer potentials to establish rectifiability and boundary regularity for elliptic operators with variable coefficients, advancing free boundary problem solutions.

Contribution

It introduces a rectifiability criterion based on layer potentials and extends the $Tb$ theorem to broader operators, enabling progress on free boundary problems.

Findings

Established a rectifiability criterion using $T_$ and geometric conditions.

Extended the $Tb$ theorem to broader classes of singular integral operators.

Enabled solutions to free boundary problems in elliptic measure contexts.

Abstract

For $n \geq 2$, we consider the operator $L_A = -\mathrm{div }(A(\cdot)\nabla)$, where $A$ is a uniformly elliptic $(n+1)\times(n+1)$ matrix with variable coefficients, a Radon measure $\mu$ on $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$, and the associated gradient of the single layer potential operator $T_\mu$. Under a Dini-type assumption on the mean oscillation of the matrix $A$, we establish the following results: 1) A rectifiability criterion for $\mu$ in terms of $T_\mu$. Under quantitative geometric and analytic assumptions within a ball $B$ -- including an upper $n$-growth condition on $\mu$ in $B$, a thin boundary condition, a scale-invariant decay condition expressed via a weighted sum of densities over dyadic dilations of $B$, and $L^2$ boundedness of the gradient of $T_\mu$ -- we show the following: if the support of $\mu$ lies very close to an $n$-plane in $B$, and $T_\mu 1$ is nearly constant on $B$ in the $L^2$ sense, then there exists a uniformly $n$-rectifiable set $\Gamma$ such that $\mu(B \cap \Gamma) \gtrsim \mu(B)$. 2) A $Tb$ theorem for suppressed $T_\mu$, which extends a well-known theorem of Nazarov, Treil, and Volberg, and holds also for a broader class of singular integral operators. These results make it possible to prove both qualitative and quantitative one- and two-phase free boundary problems for elliptic measure, formulated in terms of (uniform) rectifiability, in bounded Wiener-regular domains.