Interface regularity for semilinear one-phase problems (Q2143670)

Let \(\Phi\) be the cumulative distribution function with a probability density \(\beta\) with compact support in \([0, \infty)\) and \(\beta'(0)> 0\); that is, \[ \Phi (u) :=\begin{cases} \int_0^u \beta(\tau) \ d\tau\ &\text{ for } u \ge 0 \\ 0 & \text{ for } u < 0 \end{cases} \] is nondecreasing, there exist positive constants \( \vartheta_1, \vartheta_2, c_1\) such that \[ \frac{1}{c_1} u \le \frac12 \Phi'(u) \le c_1 u \] for \(0\le u \le \vartheta_1\) and \( \Phi (u) = 1 \) for \( \vartheta_2 \le u\). For \(\varepsilon \in (0,1]\) let \(\Phi_\varepsilon(u) :=\Phi(u/\varepsilon) \). Note that \(\Phi_\varepsilon (u) \to \chi_{\{u>0\}}\) as \(\varepsilon\) decreases to \(0\). The focus of this paper is the study of critical points of energy functionals \[ \mathcal{E}_\varepsilon (u, \Omega) := \int_\Omega |\nabla u |^2 + \Phi_\varepsilon(u) \ dx \] for \(u \in H^1(\Omega)\), where \(\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^N\) is an open domain. A number of techniques developed (in particular by De Silva and by Savin) in the case of the one-phase problem, corresponding to energy \[ \mathcal{E}_0 (u, \Omega) := \int_\Omega |\nabla u |^2 + \chi_{\{u>0\}}\ dx, \] are adapted and combined with the ``sliding method'' of Berestycki, Caffarelli, Nirenberg to prove the main results. In particular, the authors prove a De Giorgi-type conjecture of Fernández-Real and Ros-Oton that for \(N\le 4\), any minimizer \(u : \mathbb{R}^N \to \mathbb{R}_+\) of \(\mathcal{E}_1\) depends only on one direction, i.e., \(u(x)\) is a function of the variable \(\nu\cdot x\) for some unit vector \(\nu\) fixed.