Stable \(s\)-minimal cones in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) are flat for \(s \sim 1\) (Q782613)

Let \(\Sigma\) be a cone with nonempty boundary of class \(C^2\) away from the origin. The cone \(\Sigma\) is said to be stable if the second-order derivation by integral flow of any vector field for fractional \(s\)-perimeter in the unit ball is nonnegative. A stable cone for the \(s\)-perimeter in \({\mathbb R}^3\) is called shortly a stable \(s\)-minimal cone in \({\mathbb R}^3\). In this paper, the authors prove that half spaces are the only nonlocal \(s\)-minimal cones in \({\mathbb R}^3\) for \(s \in (0, 1)\) sufficiently close to \(1\). More precisely, they show that there exists \(s_* \in (0,1)\) such that for every \(s \in (s_*, 1)\), if \(\Sigma\subset {\mathbb R}^3\) is a stable cone with nonempty boundary of class \(C^2\) away from the origin, then \(\Sigma\) is a half space. This is the first classification result of stable \(s\)-minimal cones in dimension higher than two. The analogue result for \(n=2\) and for any \(s \in (0,1)\) was established in [\textit{O. Savin} and \textit{E. Valdinoci}, J. Funct. Anal. 264, No. 10, 2469--2496 (2013; Zbl 1278.49029)]. See also [\textit{E. Cinti} et al., J. Differ. Geom. 112, No. 3, 447--504 (2019; Zbl 1420.53014)] for the quantitative version. The proof of the result cannot rely on a compactness argument perturbing from \(s=1\) as in the case of \(n=2\). In fact, the authors use some geometric formula for the second variation of the fractional \(s\)-perimeter, which involves a squared nonlocal second fundamental form, as well as the recent BV estimates [the authors, ``Stable solutions to the fractional Allen-Cahn equation'', Preprint] for stable nonlocal minimal sets.