The average-distance problem with an Euler elastica penalization (Q2119726)

Summary: We consider the minimization of an average-distance functional defined on a two-dimensional domain \(\Omega\) with an Euler elastica penalization associated with \(\partial\Omega \), the boundary of \(\Omega \). The average distance is given by \[ \int_{\Omega}\operatorname{dist}^p(x,\partial\Omega)\operatorname{d}x, \] where \(p\geq 1\) is a given parameter and \(\operatorname{dist}(x,\partial\Omega)\) is the Hausdorff distance between \(\{x\}\) and \(\partial\Omega \). The penalty term is a multiple of the Euler elastica (i.e., the Helfrich bending energy or the Willmore energy) of the boundary curve \({\partial\Omega}\), which is proportional to the integrated squared curvature defined on \(\partial\Omega \), as given by \[ \lambda\int_{\partial\Omega} \kappa_{\partial\Omega}^2 \mathrm{d}\mathcal{H}_{\llcorner\partial\Omega}^1, \] where \(\kappa_{\partial\Omega}\) denotes the (signed) curvature of \(\partial\Omega\) and \(\lambda>0\) denotes a penalty constant. The domain \(\Omega\) is allowed to vary among compact, convex sets of \(\mathbb{R}^2\) with Hausdorff dimension equal to two. Under no a priori assumptions on the regularity of the boundary \(\partial\Omega \), we prove the existence of minimizers of \(E_{p,\lambda} \). 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.