Payne-Philippin's overdetermined problems on compact surfaces
Abstract
We investigate the overdetermined problem given by \begin{equation*} \Delta u=0 \text{ in } \Omega,\quad \frac{\partial u}{\partial\nu} =\sigma_1 u \text{ on } \partial \Omega, \quad |\nabla u|=\text{constant on } \partial \Omega, \end{equation*} where is a connected compact Riemannian surface with smooth boundary , and is the first nonzero Steklov eigenvalue of . We prove that this overdetermined problem admits a nontrivial solution if and only if is -homothetic to either the flat unit disk or a flat cylinder for some . This gives a complete answer to the question raised by Payne and Philippin in [Z. Angew. Math. Phys. 42(6), 864-873, 1991] for and arbitrary surfaces. In particular, we completely characterize compact domains in 2-dimensional space forms for which the overdetermined problem is solvable.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2512.06740,
title = {Payne-Philippin's overdetermined problems on compact surfaces},
author = {Hang Chen and Bohan Wu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.06740},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
16 pages