Bounds for capacities in terms of asymmetry (Q679196)

A condenser \(\Gamma=\Gamma(\Omega,\Omega')\) in \(\mathbb{R}^2\) consists of a compact set \(\Omega\) and a disjoint closed unbounded set \(\Omega'\). The \(p\)-capacity (\(1<p<\infty\)) of the condenser is \(\text{Cap}_p(\Gamma)=\inf\int\int_{\mathbb{R}^2}|Du|^p dxdy\), the infimum being taken over all functions \(u\) absolutely continuous in \(\mathbb{R}^2\), with \(u=0\) on \(\Omega\) and \(u=1\) on \(\Omega'\). Suppose that \(A(\Omega)=1\) and \(A(\mathbb{R}^2\setminus\Omega')=2^2\) (\(A\) denoting area) and let \(\Gamma^\ast=\Gamma(B(0,1/\sqrt\pi),\mathbb{R}^2\setminus B(0,2/\sqrt\pi))\). It is shown that there exists a constant \(K_p\), depending only on \(p\), such that \[ \text{Cap}_p(\Gamma)\geq(1+K_p\alpha(\Omega)^2)\text{Cap}_p(\Gamma^\ast) \] where \(\alpha(\Omega)\) is the asymmetry of \(\Omega\) defined by \(\alpha(\Omega)=\inf_x A(\mathbb{R}^2\setminus B(x,1/\sqrt\pi))\). The exponent \(2\) in this isoperimetric inequality is sharp. The proof is based on a new symmetrization technique leading to a perturbation lemma for \(2\)-capacity. An analogous result is conjectured for arbitrary dimension \(n\).