Shape optimization and free boundary problem: the case of the \(p\)-Laplacian (Q1432085)

The purpose of the paper is to prove existence and uniqueness results for a free boundary problem of Bernoulli type posed in an exterior domain and for the \(p\)-Laplace operator. Let \(K\) be a compact, smooth and connected subset of \(\mathbb{R}^{N}\) and \(c\) be a positive constant. The problem is to find a subset \(\Omega \) of \(\mathbb{R}^{N}\) containing \(K\) and a function \( u_{\Omega }\) such that \(-\Delta _{p}u_{\Omega }=0\) in \(\Omega \setminus K\), \( u_{\Omega }=0\) on \(\partial \Omega \), \(u_{\Omega }=1\) on \(\partial K\) and \( \partial u_{\Omega }/\partial \nu =c\) on \(\partial K\), where \(\Delta _{p}\) is the \(p\)-Laplace operator. Existence and uniqueness results have already been proved for this problem by \textit{A. Acker} and \textit{R. A. Meyer} [Electron. J. Differ. Equ. 1995/08, 1--20 (1995; Zbl 0820.35037)] and \textit{A. Henrot} and \textit{H. Shahgholian} [J. Reine Angew. Math. 521, 85--97 (2000; Zbl 0955.35078)] but under other assumptions on the geometry of \(K\). The first part of the paper focuses on a shape optimization problem associated to this Bernoulli type problem. Let \(J\) be the cost functional \( J( \omega ) =\int_{\Omega }| \nabla u_{\omega }| ^{p}dx/p+\int_{\omega }G( x,u_{\omega }( x) ) dx\), where \(G( x,s) =\int_{0}^{s}g( x,t) dt\) for some function \(g\) which is continuous in \(s\), monotone increasing with respect to \(t\) and such that \(g( .,0) =0\). Here \(u_{\omega }\) is the solution of \(\Delta _{p}u_{\omega }=g( .,u_{\omega }) \) in \( \omega \setminus K\), \(u_{\omega }=0\) on \(\partial \omega \), \(u_{\omega }=1\) on \(\partial K\) and \(\omega \) is taken in the set of open subsets which contain \(K\), which are contained in a fixed domain \(D\) and which satisfy either an \(\varepsilon \)-cone property or a geometric property of the normal as previously introduced by \textit{B. Gustafsson} and \textit{H. Shahgholian} [J. Reine Angew. Math. 473, 137--179 (1996; Zbl 0846.31005)]. The authors prove the existence of a solution of this shape optimization problem considering the properties of a minimizing sequence. Using the classical derivation method with respect to a domain, the authors prove the existence of a negative Lagrange multiplier \(\lambda _{\Omega }\) of the shape optimization problem such that \(\partial u_{\Omega }/\partial \nu =( -p\lambda _{\Omega }/( p-1) ) ^{1/p}\) on \( \partial \Omega \), which is supposed to be \(C^{2}\). They then prove a monotonicity property of this Lagrange multiplier \(\lambda _{\Omega }\) with respect to the domain, assuming that \(K\) is star-shaped with respect to the origin. Finally, they prove the existence and uniqueness result of the original free boundary problem using this monotonicity property and a comparison principle for the \(p\)-Laplace operator proved by \textit{P. Tolksdorf} [Commun. Partial Differ. Equations 8, 773--817 (1983; Zbl 0515.35024)].