Isovolumetric and isoperimetric problems for a class of capillarity functionals (Q887916)

Consider the closed surfaces in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) parametrized by mappings \(u:S^2\to \mathbb{R}^3\). Consider the stereographic projection \(\phi\) of \(\mathbb{S}^2\) on the compactified plane \(\mathbb{R}^2\cup \{\infty\}\) and identify the maps \(u\) with corresponding maps \(u\circ \phi^{-1}\). Then the area of the surface parametrized by \(u\) is given by \(\mathcal{A}(u)=\int_{\mathbb{R}^2}|u_x\wedge u_y|\) and the algebraic volume enclosed by \(u\) can be computed in terms of the Bononcini-Wente integral \(\mathcal{V}(u)= {{1}\over {3}}\int_{\mathbb{R}^3}u.u_x\wedge u_y\). The author studies a class of functionals involving the area and the volume. He considers the special case of a Lagrange function such as \(F(p,q)=|q|+ Q(p).q\) with \(Q \in C^1(\mathbb{R}^3,\mathbb{R}^3)\) prescribed. Cartan functionals corresponding to such \(F\) can be interpreted as modified area integrals with an anisotropy term \(\mathcal{F}(u)=\mathcal{A}(u)+\int_{\mathbb{R}^2}Q(u).u_x\wedge u_y\). Some important surfaces are the ``H-bubbles'' and the author studies the relation between the isovolumetric problem for capillarity functionals and the H-bubble problem. In fact, he obtains for a certain class of anisotropies vanishing at infinity, the existence and nonexistence of volume-constrained, \(\mathbb{S}^2\)-type, minimal surfaces for the corresponding capillarity functionals.