How to place an obstacle having a dihedral symmetry inside a disk so as to optimize the fundamental Dirichlet eigenvalue (Q2302734)

The authors deal with an obstacle placement problem inside a disk. Namely, they consider the first Dirichlet eigenvalue \(\lambda_1(\Omega_t)\) of the Laplacian on \(\Omega_t:=B\setminus \rho_t(P)\) where \(B\) is a disk in the plane, \(P\) is a planar domain having a dihedral symmetry of order \(n\) such that the closure of its circumcircle is contained in \(B\), and \(\rho_t(P)\) denotes a counter-clockwise rotation of an angle \(t\) of \(P\) about its center. In their setting, the center of the obstacle does not coincide with the center of the disk. Then, they study the dependence of \(\lambda_1(\Omega_t)\) upon \(t\), looking for optimal configurations. For odd \(n\), the authors are able to characterize those \(t\) for which \(\lambda_1(\Omega_t)\) is optimal, in particular they characterize minimizers and maximizers. Moreover, they also investigate global maximal configurations, i.e., they allow also the distance from the center of \(\rho_t(P)\) to the center of \(B\) to vary. In particular, they characterize global maximal configurations for any \(n\) and global minimal confingurations for odd \(n\).