Write , , and let be the radial profile of the radial derivative , which may be assumed to be a radial function here. The spherical coordinate system givesSince , both and belong to the Lp space . It remains to identify the weak derivative of the radial profile directly.
For , each component of is a test function on . Sum the three defining weak derivative identities, using the stated divergence formula:Given an arbitrary test function , choose . Dividing by gives , exactly the definition of the weak derivative. We have provedThis radial Sobolev profile on an annulus estimate follows from the two weighted integrals above and equivalence of the usual Sobolev norms.