Steiner symmetrization: a weighted version of Pólya--Szegő principle (Q2471314)

Authors' introduction: We show that for a multiple integral of the type \[ \int_{\mathbb{R}^n} f(x', u(x), \nabla_{x'}u(x), g(y)\nabla_y u(x))\,dx, \] where \(x= (x', y)\), \(x'\in \mathbb{R}^{n-1}\), \(y\in\mathbb{R}\), the convexity of \(f\) with respect to the gradient and the strict convexity of the weight \(g\) not only ensure the validity of the Pólya--Szegő inequality, but also force the extremals to be Steiner symmetric.