English

A strict inequality for the minimisation of the Willmore functional under isoperimetric constraint

Differential Geometry 2021-07-19 v2 Optimization and Control

Abstract

Inspired by previous work of Kusner and Bauer-Kuwert, we prove a strict inequality between the Willmore energies of two surfaces and their connected sum in the context of isoperimetric constraints. Building on previous work by Keller-Mondino-Rivi\`ere, our strict inequality leads to existence of minimisers for the isoperimetric constrained Willmore problem in every genus, provided the minimal energy lies strictly below 8π8\pi. Besides the geometric interest, such a minimisation problem has been studied in the literature as a simplified model in the theory of lipid bilayer cell membranes.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2011.14904,
  title  = {A strict inequality for the minimisation of the Willmore functional under isoperimetric constraint},
  author = {Andrea Mondino and Christian Scharrer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2011.14904},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

16 pages. Final version to appear in Advances in Calculus of Variations