Uniqueness of diffeomorphic minimizers of $L^p$-mean distortion

Abstract

We study the $L^p$-mean distortion functionals, \[{\cal E}_p[f] = \int_\mathbb Y K^p_f(z) \; dz, \] for Sobolev homeomorphisms $f: \overline{\mathbb Y}\xrightarrow{\rm onto} \overline{\mathbb X}$ where $\mathbb X$ and $\mathbb Y$ are bounded simply connected Lipschitz domains, and $f$ coincides with a given boundary map $f_0 \colon \partial \mathbb Y \to \partial \mathbb X$. Here, $K_f(z)$ denotes the pointwise distortion function of $f$. It is conjectured that for every $1 < p < \infty$, the functional $\mathcal{E}_p$ admits a minimizer that is a diffeomorphism. We prove that if such a diffeomorphic minimizer exists, then it is unique.