Two functionals connected to the Laplacian in a class of doubly connected domains on rank one symmetric spaces of non-compact type (Q387584)

The authors consider the boundary value problem \(- \Delta u = 1\) in \(\Omega = B_1 \setminus {\bar B}_0\), \(u=0\) on \(\partial \Omega\), where \(B_1\) is an open ball in a rank-one symmetric space of non-compact type and \(B_0\) is a smaller ball whose closure is contained in \(B_1\). It is shown that the Dirichlet's energy of the unique weak solution of this problem attains its minimum over the set \({\mathcal F} := \{\Omega = B_1 \setminus {\bar B}_0 \}\) if and only if the balls \(B_0\) and \(B_1\) are concentric. Furthermore, it is shown that the first eigenvalue of the problem \(- \Delta u = \lambda u\) in \(\Omega\), \(u = 0\) on \(\partial \Omega\) has its maximum over the set \({\mathcal F}\) if and only if \(B_0\) and \(B_1\) are concentric balls.