Concentration phenomena for the volume functional in unbounded domains: identification of concentration points. (Q1874697)

In this paper the authors give a concentration result for maximizing sequences for the variational problem \[ S^F_\varepsilon(\Omega)=\frac{1}{\varepsilon^{2^*}} \sup \left\{ \int _\Omega F(u):\int _\Omega | \nabla u| ^2\leq \varepsilon ^2, u=0 \text{ on }\partial \Omega \right\}, \] with \(0\leq F(t)\leq \alpha | t| ^{2^*}\) and \(\Omega\subset R^n\) (\(n\geq 3\)) an unbounded domain. They prove that concentration occurs on harmonic center, i.e. minimum point for the Robin function \(\tau _\Omega\). The crucial point is, since \(\Omega\) may be unbounded, to define the Robin function on the closure \(\bar\Omega\), closure taken in the one point compactification of \(R^n\). The extension is defined to be \[ \tau_\Omega (\infty)=\lim _{\varrho\to 0}\lim _{R\to \infty} \int _{x,y\in R^n | x| \geq R,| x-y| \leq\varrho} \bar H_\Omega(x,y), \] where \[ \bar H_\Omega(x,y)=\liminf _{z\to y z\in \Omega}H_\Omega(x,z) \] with \(H_\Omega\) the regular part of the Green function. This definition of \(\tau_\Omega\) gives a lower semicontinuous function with \(\tau_\Omega(\infty)\) that can be strictly below the largest lower semicontinuous extension of \(\tau_\Omega\).