On the Hong-Krahn-Szego inequality for the \(p\)-Laplace operator (Q2376343)

In the paper under review, the authors deal with the problem of minimizing the second eigenvalue \(\lambda_2(\Omega)\) of the homogeneous Dirichlet eigenvalue problem for the \(p\)-Laplacian operator \(-\Delta_p u=-\)div\((|\nabla u|^{p-2}\nabla u)\), among all open sets with fixed finite Lebesgue measure. More precisely, they prove that the disjoint union of two balls of equal measure minimizes \(\lambda_2\) among open sets of given measure, generalizing the well-known Hong-Krahn-Szegő inequality for the second eigenvalue of the Dirichlet Laplacian. Moreover, the inequality is improved by means of a quantitative stability estimate. The extremal cases \(p=1\) and \(p=\infty\) are considered as well.