A minimum energy problem and Dirichlet spaces (Q2758982)

The author analyzes a minimum energy problem for a discrete electrostatic model in the complex plane and discusses some applications. Let \(z_1,\dots,z_N\) be \(N\) fixed points in the complex plane \(\mathbb{C}\) each bearing a positive unit charge, such that none of them is zero or lies on the unit circumference \(\mathbb {T}=\{z:|z|=1\}\), and let \(e^{i\theta_1},\dots,e^{i\theta_N}\) be the positions of \(N\) movable particles of negative unit charge, restrained to \(\mathbb {T}\). We denote this system by \(S(N,N)\). The author proves the following statement: Every electrostatic system \(S(N,N)\) has a unique configuration of minimum energy (the ground state) \(\lambda_1,\dots,\lambda_N\) on the unit circle \(\mathbb {T}\). This ground state obeys equality of average arguments NEWLINE\[NEWLINE \frac{z_1\cdots z_N}{\lambda_1\cdots\lambda_N}>0,NEWLINE\]NEWLINE and varies continuously with \(z_1,\dots,z_N\) for \(z_n\notin\mathbb {T}\cup\{0\}\), \(n=1,\dots, N\). Any other equilibrium configuration \(\lambda_1,\dots,\lambda_N\) of the system is unstable and satisfies NEWLINE\[NEWLINE \frac{ z_1\cdots z_N}{\lambda_1\cdots\lambda_N}<0.NEWLINE\]NEWLINE The author also derives a related family of linear second order differential equations with polynomial solutions.