Conducting flat drops in a confining potential (Q2113552)

In this very interesting paper, the authors carry on the investigation of a geometric variational problem arising in the studies of an electrified fluid in presence of an external potential \(g(x)\). The energy functional involved in this investigation, \[ E_{\lambda}(\Omega):=\mathcal{H}^1(\partial\Omega)+\lambda\mathcal{I}_1 (\Omega)+\int_{\Omega}g(x)\ dx \] is mathematically very much intriguing due to the competition between short-range attractive and long-range repulsive forces that produces non-trivial energy minimizing configurations. The quantity \(\mathcal{I}_{\alpha}(\Omega)\) is the Riesz \(\alpha-\)capacity enery of \(\Omega\) defined by the position \[ \mathcal{I}_{\alpha}(\Omega)=\inf \Biggl\{ \int_{\Omega}\int_{\Omega}\frac{d\mu(x)d\mu(y)}{|x-y|^{\alpha}}: \mu (\Omega)=1 \Biggr\}. \] The authors characterize, in Theorem 1, the semicontinuous envelope of the energy in terms of a parameter measuring the relative strength of the Coulomb interaction. As a consequence of this characterization, when the potential is confining and the Coulomb repulsion strength is below a critical value \(\lambda_c(\Omega)\) depending only of the measure of \(\Omega\), they show existence and regularity estimates for volume-constrained minimizers. They also derive the Euler-Lagrange equation satisfied by regular critical points, expressing the first variation of the Coulombic energy in terms of the normal \(\frac{1}{2}\)-derivative of the capacitary potential.