The first eigenvalue of the Laplacian, isoperimetric constants, and the max flow min cut theorem (Q2502305)

Let \(\Omega \subset \mathbb R^n\) be a domain, then it is well-known that the fundamental frequency is \[ \lambda_\Omega = \inf \frac{\int_\Omega | \nabla u| ^2dx}{\int_\Omega u^2dx}, \] where the infimum is taken over all \(u \in C_0^\infty\). Cheeger's inequality is \[ \lambda_\Omega \geq h^2_\Omega/4, \] where \(h_\Omega\) is the Cheeger constant and it holds \[ h_\Omega = \inf_{S \subset \Omega}\frac{| \partial S| }{| S| }, \] where the infimum is taken over all open subset \(S \subset \Omega\). The purpose of the present paper is to give a simple idea how to get lower bounds for \(h_\Omega\). In order to do this a continuous version of the classical max flow min cut theorem for networks is used. For simply connected plane domains the following application of this new approach is given. Let \(\rho_\Omega\) be the inradius of the domain \(\Omega\) and \(\tilde{\rho}_\Omega = \rho_\Omega/(1+\pi\rho^2_\Omega/| \Omega| )\) the reduced inradius, then a well-known inequality is \[ \lambda_\Omega \geq \frac{1}{4 {\tilde{\rho}_\Omega}^2}.\tag{1} \] (1) is a consequence of \[ h_\Omega \geq \frac{1}{\tilde{\rho}_\Omega}\tag{2} \] and Cheeger's inequality. (2) is implicitly given by \textit{E. Makai} [Acta Math. Acad. Sci. Hung. 16, 319--323 (1965; Zbl 0141.30201)], where the weaker version \(\lambda_\Omega \geq \frac{1}{4 {\rho_\Omega}^2}\) of (1) was proved, which often has been overlooked. The author gives two proofs of (2) one of them uses the Bonnesen inequality and follows Makai and Osserman and the other is based on this new approach. A proof of the above mentioned weaker version of (1) is also given by \textit{C. Bandle} [Isoperimetric inequalities and applications (1980; Zbl 0436.35063), p. 159].