A new symmetry criterion based on the distance function and applications to PDE's

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new geometric symmetry criterion based on a distance function integral, proving that constancy of this function on the boundary implies the domain is a ball, with applications to symmetry problems in PDEs.

Contribution

It establishes a novel symmetry criterion involving a boundary integral function and applies it to PDEs, including Monge-Kantorovich equations and divergence form equations.

Findings

Constancy of the integral function on the boundary implies the domain is a ball.

The criterion applies to overdetermined Monge-Kantorovich type systems.

It also applies to PDEs with solutions depending only on boundary distance.

Abstract

We prove that, if $\Omega\subset \mathbb{R}^n$ is an open bounded starshaped domain of class $C^2$, the constancy over $\partial \Omega$ of the function $$\varphi(y) = \int_0^{\lambda(y)} \prod_{j=1}^{n-1}[1-t \kappa_j(y)]\, dt$$ implies that $\Omega$ is a ball. Here $k_j(y)$ and $\lambda(y)$ denote respectively the principal curvatures and the cut value of a boundary point $y \in \partial \Omega$. We apply this geometric result to different symmetry questions for PDE's: an overdetermined system of Monge-Kantorovich type equations (which can be viewed as the limit as $p \to + \infty$ of Serrin's symmetry problem for the $p$-Laplacian), and equations in divergence form whose solutions depend only on the distance from the boundary in some subset of their domain.