For any p ∈ (1, 2) and f ∈ Lp (Rn ) and consider the following PDE :

−∆u = div (f ). We assume that u ∈ W 1,p (Rn ).

Theorem 1. There exists an ε > 0 and a positive constant C such that for
any p ∈ (2 − ε, 2) the following holds:
k∇ukLp (Rn ) ≤ C kf kLp (Rn ) .
Proof. For any λ > 0 one can consider define Oλ := {x : M (∇u) ( (x) ≤ λ}
u on Oλc
and then consider the Lipschitz truncations defined as uλ :=
Lλ on Oλ
where Lλ is a Lipschitz function such that k∇uλ k∞ ≤´ cλ for some c´ > 0. By
approximating
´ uλ with test-functions we obtain that ∇u · ∇uλ = f · ∇uλ ,
where denotes the integral over Rn . Consequently we have
ˆ ˆ ˆ
2
|∇u| ≤ |∇u| |f | + |∇uλ | |∇u|
c
Oλ Oλ
ˆ ˆ
≤ |f | |∇u| + c (|∇u| + |f |) λ
c
Oλ Oλ

and by multiplying this quantity with λ−1−α for α ∈ (0, 1) and then integrat-
ing it from 0 to ∞ w.r.t. λ one obtains:
ˆ ∞ˆ ˆ ∞ˆ ˆ ∞ˆ
2
|∇u| dxdλ ≤ |∇u| |f | dxdλ + c (|∇u| + |f |) λ−α dxdλ
0 c
Oλ 0
| {z } | {z } | 0 Oλ
{z }
I1 I2 I3

Next, we will prove that

´
• I1 ≥ αc |M (∇u)|2−α dx
´
• I2 ≤ |f | |M (∇u)|1−α dx

´ ´
• I3 ≤ 1−α1
+ δ |M (∇u)|2−α dx + Cδ |f |2−α dx for any δ > 0 .
Assuming that we proved the 3 claims from above, we should obtain then
ˆ  ˆ ˆ
c 2−α 1 2−α
|M (∇u)| dx ≤ + 2δ |M (∇u)| dx + Cδ |f |2−α
α 1−α
1
and for α small enough we will get 1−α < αc and this combined with the fact
that M (u) ≥ u almost everywhere is the end of the theorem. Let us now
justify the claims from above.

1
 • We have
ˆ ∞ ˆ ˆ ∞ ˆ
2
|∇u| λ −1−α
dxdλ = |∇u|2 λ−1−α χ(M (|∇u|≤λ)) dxdλ =
0 c
Oλ 0
ˆ ˆ ∞ ˆ ˆ
2 1 α 2 c
λ−1−α
|∇u (x)| dxdλ = M (|∇u|) |∇u| dx ≥ |M (∇u)|2−α
M (|∇u|)(x) α α

and the last inequality follows from Muckenhopf’s inequality, since

(M f )−α ∈ A2

• Similarly we obtain
ˆ ˆ
1 −α 1
I2 = |∇u| |f | |M (∇u) (x)| dx ≤ |f | |M (∇u) (x)|1−α dx.
α α
Next , for any δ > 0 we can apply Young’s inequality to obtain
ˆ ˆ ˆ
1 1−α 2−α
α−2
|f | |δM (∇u) (x)| dx ≤ δ |M (∇u)| + cδ |f |2−α
δ
and this inequality can be used to obtain a majorization for I2 .

•
ˆ ∞ ˆ ˆ ˆ M (∇u)(x)
−α
I3 = (|f | + |∇u|) λ dxdλ = λ−α dλdx ≤
0 Oλ
ˆ ˆ 0
1
M (∇u)2−α dx + |f | |M (∇u)|1−α ≤
1−α
 ˆ ˆ
1 2−α
+δ |M (∇u)| dx + Cδ |f |2−α dx
1−α

which ends the proof.