Polygons as maximizers of Dirichlet energy or first eigenvalue of Dirichlet-Laplacian among convex planar domains

Abstract

Abstract We prove that solutions to several shape optimization problems in the plane, with a convexity constraint on the admissible domains, are polygons. The main terms of the shape functionals we consider are either the Dirichlet energy E f ⁢ ( Ω ) {E_{f}(\Omega)} of the Laplacian in the domain Ω or the first eigenvalue λ 1 ⁢ ( Ω ) {\lambda_{1}(\Omega)} of the Dirichlet-Laplacian. Usually, one considers minimization of such functionals (often with measure constraint), as for example for the famous Saint-Venant and Faber-Krahn inequalities. By adding the convexity constraint (and possibly other natural constraints), we instead consider the rather unusual and difficult question of maximizing these functionals. This paper follows a series of papers by the authors, where the leading idea is that a certain concavity property of the shape functional that is minimized leads optimal shapes to locally saturate their convexity constraint, which geometrically means that they are polygonal. In these previous papers, the leading term in the shape functional was usually the opposite of the perimeter, for which the aforementioned concavity property was rather easy to obtain through computations of its second order shape derivative. By carrying classical shape calculus, a similar concavity property can be observed for the opposite of E f ⁢ ( Ω ) {E_{f}(\Omega)} or λ 1 ⁢ ( Ω ) {\lambda_{1}(\Omega)} when shapes are smooth and convex. The main novelty in the present paper is the proof of a weak convexity property of E f ⁢ ( Ω ) {E_{f}(\Omega)} and λ 1 ⁢ ( Ω ) {\lambda_{1}(\Omega)} among planar convex shapes, namely rather nonsmooth shapes. This involves new computations and estimates of the second order shape derivatives of E f ⁢ ( Ω ) {E_{f}(\Omega)} and λ 1 ⁢ ( Ω ) {\lambda_{1}(\Omega)} interesting for themselves.