Inner Riesz pseudo-balayage and its applications to minimum energy problems with external fields

For the Riesz kernel $\kappa_\alpha(x,y):=|x-y|^{\alpha-n}$, $0<\alpha<n$, on $\mathbb R^n$, $n\geqslant2$, we introduce the inner pseudo-balayage $\hat{\omega}^A$ of a (Radon) measure $\omega$ on $\mathbb R^n$ to a set $A\subset\mathbb R^n$ as the (unique) measure minimizing the Gauss functional $$\int\kappa_\alpha(x,y)\,d(\mu\otimes\mu)(x,y)-2\int\kappa_\alpha(x,y)\,d(\omega\otimes\mu)(x,y)$$ over the class $\mathcal E^+(A)$ of all positive measures $\mu$ of finite energy, concentrated on $A$. For quite general signed $\omega$ (not necessarily of finite energy) and $A$ (not necessarily closed), such $\hat{\omega}^A$ does exist, and it maintains the basic features of inner balayage for positive measures (defined when $\alpha\leqslant2$), except for those implied by the domination principle. (To illustrate the latter, we point out that, in contrast to what occurs for the balayage, the inner pseudo-balayage of a positive measure may increase its total mass.) The inner pseudo-balayage $\hat{\omega}^A$ is further shown to be a powerful tool in the problem of minimizing the Gauss functional over all $\mu\in\mathcal E^+(A)$ with $\mu(\mathbb R^n)=1$, which enables us to improve substantially many recent results on this topic, by strengthening their formulations and/or by extending the areas of their applications. For instance, if $A$ is a quasiclosed set of nonzero inner capacity $c_*(A)$, and if $\omega$ is a signed measure, compactly supported in $\mathbb R^n\setminus{\rm Cl}_{\mathbb R^n}A$, then the problem in question is solvable if and only if either $c_*(A)<\infty$, or $\hat{\omega}^A(\mathbb R^n)\geqslant1$.