On stable extremals of the potential energy functional

Optimization of shapes other than minimal surfaces (49Q10) Minimal surfaces in differential geometry, surfaces with prescribed mean curvature (53A10) Differential geometry of immersions (minimal, prescribed curvature, tight, etc.) (53C42)

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Let \(\mathcal{M}\) be a smooth manifold of dimension \(n\) and \(\Omega\) a smooth domain in \(\mathbb{R}^{n+1}\) containing \(\mathcal{M}\) in its boundary. The author studies the following potential energy functional: \[J(\mathcal{M}):=\int_{\mathcal{M}} \Phi(\xi) d\mathcal{M} + \int_\Omega \psi(x) dx\] where \(\xi\) is a field of unit normal vectors to the surface \(\mathcal{M}\), \(\Phi\) and \(\psi\) are smooth functions. The author recalls the expression of the first and second derivative of \(J\) for small deformations of \(\mathcal{M}\). A surface \(\mathcal{M}\) is said to be extremal if the first derivative cancels (for any deformation). An extremal surface is said to be stable if the second derivative is positive for any deformation. Under the assumption that \(\langle \nabla \psi,\xi \rangle\leq 0\) along the surface, the main result of this paper is a characterization of the situation where the Euclidean sphere is the only extremal and stable surface for the functional \(J\). In some sense, this result can be seen as a generalization of the classical Alexandrov's Theorem.

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