Distortion (mathematics)
# Distortion (mathematics)

In mathematics, the distortion is a measure of the amount by which a function from the Euclidean plane to itself distorts circles to ellipses. If the distortion of a function is equal to one, then it is conformal; if the distortion is bounded and the function is a homeomorphism, then it is quasiconformal. The distortion of a function ƒ of the plane is given by

    $H(z,f)=\limsup _{r\to 0}{\frac {\max _{|h|=r}|f(z+h)-f(z)|}{\min _{|h|=r}|f(z+h)-f(z)|}}$

which is the limiting eccentricity of the ellipse produced by applying ƒ to small circles centered at z. This geometrical definition is often very difficult to work with, and the necessary analytical features can be extrapolated to the following definition. A mapping ƒ : Ω → $R^2$ from an open domain in the plane to the plane has finite distortion at a point x ∈ Ω if ƒ is in the Sobolev space $W^{1,1}$ $_{loc}(Ω,$ $R^2),$ the Jacobian determinant J(x,ƒ) is locally integrable and does not change sign in Ω, and there is a measurable function K(x) ≥ 1 such that

    $|Df(x)|^{2}\leq K(x)|J(x,f)|$

almost everywhere. Here Df is the weak derivative of ƒ, and |Df| is the Hilbert–Schmidt norm.

For functions on a higher-dimensional Euclidean space $R^n,$ there are more measures of distortion because there are more than two principal axes of a symmetric tensor. The pointwise information is contained in the distortion tensor

    $G(x,f)={\begin{cases}|J(x,f)|^{-2/n}D^{T}f(x)Df(x)&{\text{if }}J(x,f)\not =0\\I&{\text{if }}J(x,f)=0.\end{cases}}$

The outer distortion $K_O$ and inner distortion $K_I$ are defined via the Rayleigh quotients

    $K_{O}(x)=\sup _{\xi \not =0}{\frac {\langle G(x)\xi ,\xi \rangle ^{n/2}}{|\xi |^{n}}},\quad K_{O}(x)=\sup _{\xi \not =0}{\frac {\langle G^{-1}(x)\xi ,\xi \rangle ^{n/2}}{|\xi |^{n}}}.$

The outer distortion can also be characterized by means of an inequality similar to that given in the two-dimensional case. If Ω is an open set in $R^n,$ then a function ƒ ∈ $W^{1,1}$ $_{loc}(Ω,R^n)$ has finite distortion if its Jacobian is locally integrable and does not change sign, and there is a measurable function $K_O$ (the outer distortion) such that

    $|Df(x)|^{n}\leq K_{O}(x)|J(x,f)|$

almost everywhere.

