Approximate radial symmetry for overdetermined boundary value problems (Q1575821)

The paper is concerned with bounded \(C^{2,\alpha }\)-domains \(\Omega \subseteq \mathbb{R}^{N}\) for which there exists a solution \(u\in C^{2}(\overline{ \Omega })\) of \[ \begin{cases} \Delta u+f(u)=0\;& \text{in }\Omega , \\ u>0\;& \text{in }\Omega , \\ u=0\;& \text{on }\partial \Omega ,\end{cases} \tag{1} \] where the function \(f\) is taken to be a locally Lipschitz continuous function with \(f(0)\geq 0\). The approximate symmetry problem for the equation (1) is proved: if additionally the normal \(\partial u/\partial v\) on \(\partial \Omega \) is close to a constant then the domain \(\Omega \) is close to a ball. It is a generalization of the classical symmetry problem due to \textit{J. Serrin} [Arch. rat. Mech. Anal. 43, 304-318 (1971; Zbl 0222.31007)]. The proof is done by the moving plane method and new versions of the Hopf Lemma and Serrin's corner Lemma.