Newton's problem of the body of minimal resistance under a single-impact assumption (Q5944885)

The authors consider the Newton problem of finding the body of minimal aerodynamical resistance. If we assume that its boundary is described by the graph of a function \(u:\Omega\to \mathbb{R}\), being \(\Omega\) the cross section of the body at the basis (which is assumed a priori given), the problem can be written as \[ \min\Biggl\{ \int_\Omega {1\over 1+|Du|^2} dx: u\in Adm \Biggr\}, \] where \(Adm\) is the admissible class of shapes under consideration. In this paper \(\Omega\) is the unit disc of \(\mathbb{R}^2\) and the class \(Adm\) is taken as the class of radial functions \(u:\Omega\to [0,M]\) which satisfy a geometrical property, corresponding to the requirement that the particles of the fluid hit the body described by \(u\) only once. This property is more general than the concavity of \(u\), and the existence and uniqueness of \textit{local minimizers} is investigated. In particular, for large values of \(M\) there is a unique local minimizer, whereas for \(M\) smaller than a critical value \(M^*\simeq 0.54\) the local minimizers are infinite, but all providing the same value of the resistance functional. The existence of global minimizers seems a rather delicate question, that will be discussed in a forthcoming paper.