Commutators of the fractional maximal function on variable exponent Lebesgue spaces

Let \({M_\beta }\) be the fractional maximal function. The commutator generated by \({M_\beta }\) and a suitable function b is defined by \({M_\beta },b]f = {M_\beta }(bf) - b{M_\beta }(f)\) . Denote by P(? ⁿ ) the set of all measurable functions p(·): ? ⁿ → 1,∞) such that $1 < p_ - : = \mathop {es\sin fp(x)}\limits_{x \in \mathbb{R}^n } andp_ + : = \mathop {es\operatorname{s} \sup p(x) < \infty }\limits_{x \in \mathbb{R}^n } ,$ and by B(? ⁿ ) the set of all p(·) ∈ P(? ⁿ ) such that the Hardy-Littlewood maximal function M is bounded on L ^p(·)(? ⁿ ). In this paper, the authors give some characterizations of b for which \({M_\beta },b]\) is bounded from L ^p(·)(? ⁿ ) into L ^q(·)(? ⁿ ), when p(·) ∈ P(? ⁿ ), 0 < β < n/p ₊ and 1/q(·) = 1/p(·) ? β/n with q(·)(n ? β)/n ∈ B(? ⁿ ).