English

An isoperimetric inequality for surfaces formed from spherical polygons

Analysis of PDEs 2023-06-07 v2

Abstract

We give a new proof of an isoperimetric inequality for a family of closed surfaces, which have Gaussian curvature identically equal to one wherever the surface is smooth. These surfaces are formed from a convex, spherical polygon, with each vertex of the polygon leading to a non-smooth point on the surface. For example, the surface formed from a spherical lune is a surface of revolution, with two non-smooth tips. Combined with a straightforward approximation argument, this inequality was first proved by B\'erard, Besson, and Gallot, where they provide a generalization of the L\'evy-Gromov isoperimetric inequality. The inequality implies an isoperimetric inequality for geodesically convex subsets of the sphere, and, using a Faber-Krahn theorem, it also implies a lower bound on the first Dirichlet eigenvalue of a region of a given area on the closed surfaces. Via approximation, we convert this into a lower bound on the first Dirichlet-Neumann eigenvalue of domains contained in geodesically convex subsets of the sphere.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2204.06406,
  title  = {An isoperimetric inequality for surfaces formed from spherical polygons},
  author = {Farhan Azad and Thomas Beck and Karolina Lokaj},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2204.06406},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

v2. References updated, including to a prior proof of Berard, Besson, Gallot

R2 v1 2026-06-24T10:47:01.459Z