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This monograph is a presentation of a unified approach to a certain class of semimartingale inequalities, which can be regarded as probabilistic extensions of classical estimates for conjugate harmonic functions on the unit disc. The approach, which has its roots in the seminal works of Burkholder in the 80s, enables to deduce a given inequality for semimartingales from the existence of a certain special function with some convex-type properties. Remarkably, an appropriate application of the method leads to the sharp version of the estimate under investigation, which is particularly important for applications. These include the theory of quasiregular mappings (with deep implications to the geometric function theory); the boundedness of two-dimensional Hilbert transform and a more general class of Fourier multipliers; the theory of rank-one convex and quasiconvex functions; and more. The book is divided into a few separate parts. In the introductory chapter we present motivation for the results and relate them to some classical problems in harmonic analysis. The next part contains a general description of the method, which is applied in subsequent chapters to the study of sharp estimates for discrete-time martingales; discrete-time sub- and supermartingales; continuous time processes; the square and maximal functions. Each chapter contains additional bibliographical notes included for reference.​

From the reviews:'This huge book written in several years by one of the few mathematicians able to do it, appears as a precise and impressive study (not very easy to read) of this bothsided question that replaces, in a coherent way, without being encyclopaedic, a large library of books and papers scattered without a uniform language. Instead of summarizing the author gives his own way of exposition with original complements. This requires no preliminary knowledge....The purpose which the author explains in his introduction, i.e. a deep probabilistic interpretation of potential theory and a link between two great theories, appears fulfilled in a masterly manner'.M. Brelot in Metrika (1986)

Potential theory and certain aspects of probability theory are intimately related, perhaps most obviously in that the transition function determining a Markov process can be used to define the Green function of a potential theory. Thus it is possible to define and develop many potential theoretic concepts probabilistically, a procedure potential theorists observe withjaun­ diced eyes in view of the fact that now as in the past their subject provides the motivation for much of Markov process theory. However that may be it is clear that certain concepts in potential theory correspond closely to concepts in probability theory, specifically to concepts in martingale theory. For example, superharmonic functions correspond to supermartingales. More specifically: the Fatou type boundary limit theorems in potential theory correspond to supermartingale convergence theorems; the limit properties of monotone sequences of superharmonic functions correspond surprisingly closely to limit properties of monotone sequences of super­ martingales; certain positive superharmonic functions [supermartingales] are called'potentials,'have associated measures in their respective theories and are subject to domination principles (inequalities) involving the supports of those measures; in each theory there is a reduction operation whose properties are the same in the two theories and these reductions induce sweeping (balayage) of the measures associated with potentials, and so on.