English

Nontrivial solutions to Serrin's problem in annular domains

Analysis of PDEs 2019-03-06 v2

Abstract

We construct nontrivial smooth bounded domains ΩRn\Omega \subseteq \mathbb{R}^n of the form Ω0Ω1\Omega_0 \setminus \overline{\Omega}_1, bifurcating from annuli, for which there exists a positive solution to the overdetermined boundary value problem Δu=1,  u>0in Ω,u=0,  νu=conston Ω0,u=const,  νu=conston Ω1, -\Delta u = 1, \; u>0 \quad \text{in } \Omega, \qquad u = 0 ,\; \partial_\nu u = \text{const} \quad \text{on } \partial\Omega_0, \qquad u = \text{const} ,\; \partial_\nu u = \text{const} \quad \text{on } \partial \Omega_1, where ν\nu stands for the inner unit normal to Ω\partial\Omega. From results by Reichel and later by Sirakov, it was known that the condition νu0\partial_\nu u \leq 0 on Ω1\partial\Omega_1 is sufficient for rigidity to hold, namely, the only domains which admit such a solution are annuli and solutions are radially symmetric. Our construction shows that the condition is also necessary. In addition, the constructed domains are shown to be self-Cheeger.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1902.10587,
  title  = {Nontrivial solutions to Serrin's problem in annular domains},
  author = {Nikola Kamburov and Luciano Sciaraffia},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1902.10587},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

22 pages, 1 figure (updated). We have slightly modified our original method to yield nontrivial domains, admitting solutions to Serrin's problem that satisfy the same global constant Neumann condition. We have added a discussion of the Cheeger problem and a section in which we prove the constructed domains are self-Cheeger

R2 v1 2026-06-23T07:53:07.744Z