The Brunn-Minkowski inequality for the principal eigenvalue of fully nonlinear homogeneous elliptic operators (Q2007740)

In this article, the authors prove that the principal eigenvalue of any fully nonlinear homogeneous elliptic operator which fulfills a very simple convexity assumption satisfies a Brunn-Minkowski type inequality on the class of open bounded sets in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) satisfying a uniform exterior sphere condition. The authors investigate the following eigenvalue problem: \[ \begin{cases} F(\nabla u,D^2u) = \lambda|u|^\alpha u & \text{in } \Omega \\ u = 0 &\text{on } \partial \Omega \,, \end{cases} \tag{3} \] where \(\Omega\subset \mathbb{R}^n\) is an open bounded domain, \(F : (\mathbb{R}^n \setminus \{0\}) \times S^n \to \mathbb{R}\) is a continuous function satisfying, for every \(\xi \in \mathbb{R}^n \setminus\{0\}\) and \(X\) in the space \(S^n\) of symmetric real matrices, the following conditions: \begin{itemize} \item[(H1)] \textit{Homogeneity}: for some \(\alpha > -1\) and every \((t, \mu ) \in (\mathbb{R}^n \setminus \{0\}) \times R\), \[ F(t\xi,\mu X) = |t|^\alpha \mu F(\xi,X)\,; \] \item[(H2)] \textit{Uniform ellipticity}: for some \(C \ge c > 0\) and every \(Y\) in the space \(S^n_+\) of positive semidefinite symmetric matrices, \[ c|\xi|^\alpha tr(Y )\le F(\xi,X) - F(\xi,X +Y)\le C|\xi|^\alpha tr(Y ). \] \end{itemize} For any operator satisfying (H1)--(H2) authors denote the principal eigenvalue \(\overline{\lambda}(\Omega )\) as \[ \overline{\lambda}(\Omega ) := \sup\{ \lambda \in \mathbb{R} : \exists u > 0 \text{ in } \Omega \text{viscosity super-solution to the pde in (3)}\}\,. \] Furhermore authors suppose besides (H1)--(H2), the following condition \begin{itemize} \item[(H3)] \textit{Convexity}: for every \(\xi \in \mathbb{R}^n \setminus\{0\},\) \[ X \mapsto F(\xi,X)\;\mbox{is convex on}\; S^n\,, \] and the involved domains belong to the class \[ \mathcal{A}^n := \Biggl\{\begin{array}{c} \text{open bounded connected Lipschitz domains of}\; \mathbb{R}^n \\ \text{satisfying a uniform exterior sphere condition} \end{array} \Biggr\}. \tag{4} \] \end{itemize} The main result reads as follows Theorem 1. (Brunn-Minkowski inequality). If \(F\) satisfies conditions (H1)--(H2)--(H3), for every pair of domains \(\Omega_0, \Omega_1 \in \mathcal{ A}^n\), and every \(t \in [0, 1]\), it holds \[ \overline{\lambda} \Bigl((1 - t)\Omega_0 + t\Omega_1)^{-1/(\alpha +2)} \ge (1 - t)\overline{\lambda}(\Omega_0)^{-1/(\alpha +2)} + t \overline{\lambda}(\Omega_1)^{-1/(\alpha +2)}\,. \tag{5} \] To prove Theorem 1, the authors use the method introduced by \textit{A. Colesanti} [ibid. 194, No. 1, 105--140 (2005; Zbl 1128.35318)] to obtain the Brunn-Minkowski inequality for the first eigenvalue of the Laplacian for convex domains, and the method introduced by \textit{O. Alvarez} et al. [J. Math. Pures Appl. (9) 76, No. 3, 265--288 (1997; Zbl 0890.49013)] to obtain the convexity of viscosity solutions to second order fully nonlinear elliptic equations with state constraint boundary conditions.