Isoperimetric profile and uniqueness for Neumann problems (Q1001979)

Let \((M, g)\) be a connected and compact Riemannian surface and \(f\) an absolutely continuous function satisfying \(f\geq f'>0.\) The paper deals with classical solutions of the Neumann problem \[ \begin{cases} -\Delta_gu=f(u)-\alpha & \text{in}\;M,\\ {{\partial u}\over {\partial n}}=0 & \text{on}\;\partial M, \end{cases} \] where \(\alpha\) is a real parameter. The author proves that any non-constant solution of that problem satisfies \[ \int_M f(u)\geq 8\pi \inf_{s\in (0,\text{vol}(M))}\left\{{{I^2_M(s)}\over{I^2_{\mathbb S_M}(s)}}\right\} \] where \(I_M\) and \(I_{\mathbb S_M}\) denote respectively the isoperimetric profile of \(M\) and of the standard two-dimensional sphere having the same measure as \(M.\) That inequality is applied in deriving new uniqueness results for equations of mean field type. A similar result for linear problems is established and it gives lower bounds for the first non-zero Neumann eigenvalue.