Capacities and geometric transformations of subsets in \(n\)-space (Q1308683)

A very general notion of capacity is introduced. Let \(V\) be a vector space of real-valued functions on \(\mathbb{R}^ n\), and let \(I\) be a real- valued functional on \(V\). For each compact subset \(E\) of \(\mathbb{R}^ n\), let \({\mathcal M}(E) = \{v: v\in V,\;v\geq 1\text{ on }E\}\). The capacity of \(E\) is defined to be \(\text{cap }E = \inf\{I(v): v\in {\mathcal M}(E)\}\) if \({\mathcal M}(E) \neq \emptyset\) and \(\text{cap }E = +\infty\) otherwise. If \(F\) is a closed set in \(\mathbb{R}^ n\), disjoint from the compact set \(E\), then the pair \((E,F)\) is called a condenser. Let \(C = (E,F)\) and \({\mathcal N}(C) = \{v : v\in V,\;v\geq 1\text{ on }E,\;v\leq 0\text{ on }F\}\). The condenser capacity is defined to be \(\text{cap }C = \inf\{I(v): v\in {\mathcal N}(C)\}\). By making appropriate choices of \(V\) and \(I\), one obtains various classical capacities as special cases. There are many known results for particular capacities which assert that if a set \(E\) or condenser \((E,F)\) is symmetrized in some way, then its capacity does not increase. Under certain hypotheses concerning the symmetry of the functional \(I\), the author proves results of the same kind for generalized capacities and for many types of symmetrization. The results generalize and strengthen several known theorems.