Eigenvalue inequalities for the Laplacian with mixed boundary conditions (Q525979)

On a bounded connected Lipschitz domain \(\Omega \subset {\mathbb R}^d\) denote by \( 0 < \lambda_1 < \lambda_2 \leq \lambda_3 \leq \cdots\) the eigenvalues of the (negative) Laplacian subject to a Dirichlet boundary condition on the boundary \(\partial \Omega\) and by \(0 = \mu_1 < \mu_2 \leq \mu_3 \leq \cdots\) the eigenvalues corresponding to a Neumann condition. The present paper focuses on Laplacian eigenvalues \(\lambda_k^\Gamma\) for the mixed case of a Dirichlet boundary condition on a nonempty part \(\Gamma_{\mathrm D}\) of \(\partial \Omega\) and a Neumann condition on the complement \(\Gamma_{\mathrm N}\) of \(\Gamma_{\mathrm D}\) in \(\partial \Omega\). It is assumed that \(\Gamma_{\mathrm D}\) and \(\Gamma_{\mathrm N}\) are two relatively open, non-empty subsets of \(\partial \Omega\) such that \(\Gamma_{\mathrm D} \cap \Gamma_{\mathrm N} = \emptyset\) and \(\partial \Omega \setminus (\Gamma_{\mathrm D} \cup \Gamma_{\mathrm N})\) has measure zero. The tangential hyperplane \(T_{x'}\) exists for almost all \(x' \in \partial \Omega\). Define \(\hat \Gamma_{\mathrm N}\) to be the set of all \(x' \in \Gamma_{\mathrm N}\) such that \(T_{x'}\) exists. Define the linear subspace \[ {\mathcal S}(\Gamma_{\mathrm N}) := \bigcap_{x' \in \hat \Gamma_{\mathrm N}} T_{x'} \] of \({\mathbb R}^d\) consisting of all vectors being tangential to some \(x' \in \Gamma_{\mathrm N}\) away from a set of measure zero. The authors prove that if \(\dim {\mathcal S}(\Gamma_{\mathrm N})\geq 1\) then \(\mu_{k+1}\leq \lambda_k^\Gamma\). Assume that \(\Omega \subset {\mathbb R}^d\), \(d \geq 2\), is a \textit{polyhedral, convex}, bounded domain. For this case the authors prove that \( \lambda_{k + \dim {\mathcal S} (\Gamma_{\mathrm D})}^\Gamma \leq \lambda_k\) holds for all \(k \in {\mathbb N}\). The proofs are based on variational principles and proper choices of test functions.