Minimality of the ball for a model of charged liquid droplets (Q6172268)

Summary: We prove that charged liquid droplets minimizing \textit{Debye-Hückel-type free energy} are spherical in the small charge regime. The variational model was proposed by \textit{C. B. Muratov} and \textit{M. Novaga} [Proc. R. Soc. Lond., A, Math. Phys. Eng. Sci. 472, No. 2187, Article ID 20150808, 12 p. (2016; Zbl 1371.76163)] to avoid the ill-posedness of the classical one. Combining a recent (partial) regularity result with the selection principle of \textit{M. Cicalese} and \textit{G. P. Leonardi} [Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 206, No. 2, 617--643 (2012; Zbl 1257.49045)], we prove that the ball is the unique minimizer in the small charge regime.