The average distance problem with an Euler elastica penalization

TL;DR

This paper studies the minimization of an average distance functional with an Euler elastica penalty on the boundary of convex sets in 2D, proving existence and regularity of minimizers without boundary regularity assumptions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel variational problem involving average distance and elastica penalization, establishing existence and $C^{1,1}$ regularity of minimizers in convex sets.

Findings

Existence of minimizers for the proposed functional.

Minimizers possess $C^{1,1}$ regularity.

Development of a new competitor construction for regularity proof.

Abstract

We consider the minimization of an average distance functional defined on a two-dimensional domain $\Omega$ with an Euler elastica penalization associated with $\pd \Omega$, the boundary of $\Omega$. The average distance is given by \begin{equation*} \int_{\Omega} \dist^p(x,\pd \Omega )\d x \end{equation*} where $p\geq 1$ is a given parameter, and $\dist(x,\pd \Omega)$ is the Hausdorff distance between $\{x\}$ and $\pd \Omega$. The penalty term is a multiple of the Euler elastica (i.e., the Helfrich bending energy or the Willmore energy) of the boundary curve ${\pd \Omega}$, which is proportional to the integrated squared curvature defined on $\pd \Omega$, as given by \begin{equation*} \la \int_{\pd \Omega} \kappa_{\pd \Omega}^2\d\H_{\llcorner \pd \Omega}^1, \end{equation*} where $\kappa_{\pd \Omega}$ denotes the (signed) curvature of $\pd \Omega$ and $\la>0$ denotes a penalty constant. The domain $\Omega$ is allowed to vary among compact, convex sets of $\mathbb{R}^2$ with Hausdorff dimension equal to $2$\tcr{.} Under no a priori assumptions on the regularity of the boundary $\pd \Omega$, we prove the existence of minimizers of $E_{p,\la}$. Moreover, we establish the $C^{1,1}$-regularity of its minimizers. An original construction of a suitable family of competitors plays a decisive role in proving the regularity.