The Brunn-Minkowski inequality for the principal eigenvalue of fully nonlinear homogeneous elliptic operators (Q2007740): Difference between revisions

In this article, the authors prove that the principal eigenvalue of any fully nonlinear homogeneous elliptic operator which fulfills a very simple convexity assumption satisfies a Brunn-Minkowski type inequality on the class of open bounded sets in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) satisfying a uniform exterior sphere condition. The authors investigate the following eigenvalue problem: \[ \begin{cases} F(\nabla u,D^2u) = \lambda|u|^\alpha u & \text{in } \Omega \\ u = 0 &\text{on } \partial \Omega \,, \end{cases} \tag{3} \] where \(\Omega\subset \mathbb{R}^n\) is an open bounded domain, \(F : (\mathbb{R}^n \setminus \{0\}) \times S^n \to \mathbb{R}\) is a continuous function satisfying, for every \(\xi \in \mathbb{R}^n \setminus\{0\}\) and \(X\) in the space \(S^n\) of symmetric real matrices, the following conditions: \begin{itemize} \item[(H1)] \textit{Homogeneity}: for some \(\alpha > -1\) and every \((t, \mu ) \in (\mathbb{R}^n \setminus \{0\}) \times R\), \[ F(t\xi,\mu X) = |t|^\alpha \mu F(\xi,X)\,; \] \item[(H2)] \textit{Uniform ellipticity}: for some \(C \ge c > 0\) and every \(Y\) in the space \(S^n_+\) of positive semidefinite symmetric matrices, \[ c|\xi|^\alpha tr(Y )\le F(\xi,X) - F(\xi,X +Y)\le C|\xi|^\alpha tr(Y ). \] \end{itemize} For any operator satisfying (H1)--(H2) authors denote the principal eigenvalue \(\overline{\lambda}(\Omega )\) as \[ \overline{\lambda}(\Omega ) := \sup\{ \lambda \in \mathbb{R} : \exists u > 0 \text{ in } \Omega \text{viscosity super-solution to the pde in (3)}\}\,. \] Furhermore authors suppose besides (H1)--(H2), the following condition \begin{itemize} \item[(H3)] \textit{Convexity}: for every \(\xi \in \mathbb{R}^n \setminus\{0\},\) \[ X \mapsto F(\xi,X)\;\mbox{is convex on}\; S^n\,, \] and the involved domains belong to the class \[ \mathcal{A}^n := \Biggl\{\begin{array}{c} \text{open bounded connected Lipschitz domains of}\; \mathbb{R}^n \\ \text{satisfying a uniform exterior sphere condition} \end{array} \Biggr\}. \tag{4} \] \end{itemize} The main result reads as follows Theorem 1. (Brunn-Minkowski inequality). If \(F\) satisfies conditions (H1)--(H2)--(H3), for every pair of domains \(\Omega_0, \Omega_1 \in \mathcal{ A}^n\), and every \(t \in [0, 1]\), it holds \[ \overline{\lambda} \Bigl((1 - t)\Omega_0 + t\Omega_1)^{-1/(\alpha +2)} \ge (1 - t)\overline{\lambda}(\Omega_0)^{-1/(\alpha +2)} + t \overline{\lambda}(\Omega_1)^{-1/(\alpha +2)}\,. \tag{5} \] To prove Theorem 1, the authors use the method introduced by \textit{A. Colesanti} [ibid. 194, No. 1, 105--140 (2005; Zbl 1128.35318)] to obtain the Brunn-Minkowski inequality for the first eigenvalue of the Laplacian for convex domains, and the method introduced by \textit{O. Alvarez} et al. [J. Math. Pures Appl. (9) 76, No. 3, 265--288 (1997; Zbl 0890.49013)] to obtain the convexity of viscosity solutions to second order fully nonlinear elliptic equations with state constraint boundary conditions.