Differentiation of an indefinite Lebesgue integral Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
If is locally Lebesgue integrable and
then at every Lebesgue point of , and hence almost everywhere.
A bounded holomorphic function on the unit disc has finite nontangential limits almost everywhere on its boundary. To outline a proof, bounded real and imaginary harmonic parts have boundary representations: apply the Banach-Alaoglu theorem to their circular traces and pass to the limit in the Poisson integral on the unit disk. Almost every boundary point is a Lebesgue point. The fact that a Poisson integral converges nontangentially at Lebesgue points gives the desired limits. Their norm equals the interior supremum norm, and the Poisson integral recovers the original function. Exceptional points can lack even radial limits; is a bounded example at the boundary point one.
Use the Fourier transform convention . The deleted-ball kernel need not be integrable at infinity, so first work with finite annuli. Write
We will prove a uniform bound, convergence as , and then convergence as . This makes all Fourier-transform assertions precise for the annularly cancelling singular convolution kernel.
Fix and put , so . For , let and define
The Hörmander integral kernel condition gives
On changing variables , the phase factor shows . The symmetric difference between and lies in the two shells whose radii are within of and . On each such shell, the kernel's size bound gives, by polar integration,
Therefore
and adding the two comparisons proves the oscillatory tail estimate for a singular kernel:
The integral on the right is at most . Moreover, for fixed , it tends to zero as because the translated difference is absolutely integrable outside . The shell term also tends to zero. Thus the far Fourier integral is Cauchy and converges as its outer radius tends to infinity.
Set . If , annular cancellation allows subtraction of the constant phase on the near annulus:
The same estimate applies to a shorter near annulus when . The far annulus is bounded by , using the tail estimate; if , apply that estimate with . At the annular integral vanishes by cancellation. We have proved
For each fixed , the size bound makes , and in as . By the Plancherel theorem, their Fourier transforms converge in to . The pointwise improper limits just established identify this transform, up to a null set, with
For example identification follows by selecting an almost-everywhere convergent subsequence from the convergence. Hence
The near-annulus integral with the constant phase subtracted converges absolutely at zero, since its bound is proportional to . The far integral has already converged. Therefore for every , with the same uniform bound; the value at zero may be set arbitrarily.
For , the convolution is absolutely convergent for each by Cauchy-Schwarz inequality. Its Fourier transform is : first prove this for Schwartz functions and then approximate any input. The convolutions converge uniformly under this approximation by the same Cauchy-Schwarz bound, and the multiplier outputs converge in by their uniform operator bound, so these two definitions agree. Define the bounded Fourier multiplier operator by . Dominated convergence theorem and the Plancherel theorem now give
For the final request, use a normalized bump function, , so that its dilates form an approximate identity. Multiplying Fourier transforms gives
These products are integrable by Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, since , and also define functions because and are bounded. Thus the convolution identity is justified even though need not be in :
The allowed standard approximate identity results, applied to , prove convergence to in norm and almost everywhere. This is the mass normalization in mollified singular integrals; it does not require proving almost-everywhere convergence of the sharp truncations .
If “bump function” means merely smooth with compact support, the stated limit needs the unit-integral qualification. For arbitrary such , the limit is instead. This is also the almost-everywhere limit: at each Lebesgue point of , subtract inside the convolution and bound the remaining local average by the boundedness and compact support of . As a concrete counterexample without normalization, take in dimension one and for a unit-integral mollifier . This kernel has the required size, odd annular cancellation, and translation-difference integral on for every . Its limit operator is the nonzero Hilbert transform; by the Hilbert-transform Fourier multiplier, it is an isometry. For any nonzero the mollified limit is , not .
A nontangential limit at restricts approach to a fixed Stolz region , where . Radial approach is a special case. The Fatou theorem for bounded holomorphic functions says that every in H-infinity space has a finite boundary value for almost every , with convergence through every fixed Stolz region and almost everywhere.
Here is a proof outline. Write with bounded real harmonic functions . Take a sequence . The bounded functions have a subsequence converging in the weak-star topology of by the Banach-Alaoglu theorem and weak-star metrizability of the dual ball; its predual is separable. Denote the limit by . For , the Poisson integral on the unit disk gives
The Poisson kernels converge uniformly for this fixed interior point and the boundary functions stay uniformly bounded, so the weak-star topology permits passage to the limit:
Repeat for , obtaining . Thus is the Poisson integral of .
The Lebesgue differentiation theorem makes almost every boundary point a Lebesgue point of and . The lemma that a Poisson integral converges nontangentially at Lebesgue points then gives in every fixed Stolz region. To see why, put and let be the shorter angular distance. In the kernel satisfies
Split the circle into a central arc of radius comparable to and annuli with radii . For a Lebesgue point, averages of on sufficiently small arcs are arbitrarily small. The annular contributions are bounded by these averages times a summable geometric sequence . On the remaining fixed distant arc the kernel is , so its contribution vanishes. This proves the claimed nontangential limit. The same Lebesgue points work for every integer aperture , hence for all finite apertures.
These boundary values recover the interior by the Poisson integral, so they determine uniquely. They satisfy : one inequality follows by taking limits of the bounded interior values, and the other from positivity and unit integral of the Poisson kernel. The dominated convergence theorem also gives in every finite norm. Its negative Fourier coefficients vanish, because the Taylor series of has only nonnegative powers. This explains the boundary realization of analytic Hardy spaces.
The exceptional set cannot generally be removed. For example, is bounded and holomorphic on the unit disc, using the holomorphic logarithm on the right half-plane: lies between and . At the boundary point one its radial values oscillate without a limit. Nor does the theorem assert convergence along arbitrary tangential paths or a continuous boundary extension. Its strength is almost-everywhere control on every fixed approach cone.
Write for Lebesgue measure on . The Prékopa–Leindler inequality says that if and nonnegative measurable functions satisfy
then their Lebesgue integrals satisfy
It suffices initially to take . Zero integrals give a trivial bound; infinite integrals can be handled by truncating and and applying the monotone convergence theorem. As usual, a zero factor makes the asserted lower bound zero.
Here is a one-dimensional proof using quantile functions. Put , , and let , , be the quantile functions of the probability density functions and . At almost every the quantile derivative identity gives
For completeness, these reciprocal derivative identities follow by differentiating the corresponding cumulative distribution functions at their Lebesgue points and then differentiating the inverse function relation. Sampling a quantile function at a uniform argument samples the density itself, so the exceptional set, including locations where the density vanishes or is infinite, has probability zero. Gaps in a density's support can give jumps in its quantile function; they do not invalidate the argument below.
The monotone function obeys the monotone substitution inequality:
This form uses the ordinary derivative of a monotone function, rather than any jump or singular part: its weighted image measure is dominated by Lebesgue measure. One can see this first for intervals, where , and then extend to nonnegative measurable functions by simple function approximation. Thus no assumption of strictly positive smooth probability density functions is hidden in the proof.
Using the hypothesis and the weighted arithmetic-geometric mean inequality, we obtain
Integrating over proves the one-dimensional Prékopa–Leindler inequality.
For higher dimensions, use mathematical induction and Tonelli theorem. Write and set
Apply the one-dimensional Prékopa–Leindler inequality to the last-coordinate slices, with . It gives
Apply the induction hypothesis in and use Tonelli theorem once more. For finite total integrals, infinite slice integrals occur only on null sets and may be replaced by zero there; this only weakens the displayed premise. If the data are only Lebesgue measurable rather than Borel measurable, the exceptional nonmeasurable slices can be handled in the same way for , and by setting on its exceptional null set. The total integrals are unchanged, and the slice premise holds everywhere it is needed. The result therefore holds for general nonnegative measurable functions.
Work first with essential bounds. On a Euclidean ball , put , and . The functions and are nonnegative weak solutions, hence weak supersolutions. In , at least one of the sets and has at least half the measure.
In the first case, the Weak Harnack inequality applied to gives
In the second case, applying it to gives the same lower bound for the improvement of the minimum. Thus the oscillation decay estimate is
This measure argument works even when , avoiding a false use of the triangle inequality in that range.
Iteration yields , with, for example, . At Lebesgue points the shrinking oscillations define a unique continuous representative, and the estimate extends to every point by continuity. For at distance less than , apply the estimate to a Euclidean ball centred at with initial radius and final radius comparable to . This Euclidean ball stays in . Larger distances use the trivial bound . We obtain
The constants depend only on . This derives the relevant conclusion of the De Giorgi-Nash-Moser theorem directly from part (a).
For an integrable function , the Lebesgue differentiation theorem states that
for almost everywhere . In particular,
at every Lebesgue point of .
Almost every is a Lebesgue point of . At such an , for ,
For , the same estimate over gives the identical limit. Therefore
at every Lebesgue point of , so is differentiable -almost everywhere. This is the differentiation of an indefinite Lebesgue integral.
The operator is well-defined in every dimension: gives
For fixed , its monotonicity condition is
Thus almost everywhere is sufficient. It is also necessary, by the positivity criterion for a scalar gradient form. Indeed, if the bounded coefficient is negative on a set of positive measure, choose a Lebesgue point with and a nonconstant compactly supported smooth . Set , supported inside . Then
contradicting monotonicity. Therefore . In particular it is not monotone for every : the admissible constant makes it the negative Dirichlet form.
Let denote the upper limit of the displayed mean oscillation as . For a continuous integrable approximation , continuity gives . With , the triangle inequality yields
Therefore the maximal inequality and Chebyshev's inequality give
Density makes the right side arbitrarily small. For each positive rational the exceptional set is null, proving almost everywhere, the Lebesgue differentiation theorem. Values where the chosen representative is not finite already form a null set.
For the fundamental theorem define , with oriented integration for . This function is absolutely continuous: for disjoint intervals the sum of is at most the integral of over their union, which is small when its measure is small by absolute continuity of the integral. At a Lebesgue point of , for ,
Thus almost everywhere and . Differentiability at every point is not claimed for an arbitrary integrable function.
For and a Lebesgue point , its Poisson integral tends to through every fixed Stolz region. If , the Poisson kernel there is at most , where is shorter angular distance. Dyadic annuli about bound the near contribution by small local averages of times a summable sequence . The contribution outside a fixed small arc is and vanishes. This is the local kernel argument underlying the Fatou theorem for bounded holomorphic functions.
Let be a bounded real measurable coefficient on an open set. Nonnegativity of clearly makes its gradient form nonnegative. Conversely, if on a set of positive measure, choose an interior Lebesgue point where . For a nonconstant compactly supported smooth function , set . Change variables and use the Lebesgue differentiation theorem to obtain , a contradiction. Thus the linear operator represented by is monotone exactly when almost everywhere.