Optimal Concavity for Newtonian Potentials

Abstract

In this note I give a short overview about convexity properties of solutions to elliptic equations in convex domains and convex rings and show a result about the optimal concavity of the Newtonian potential of a bounded convex domain in ℝn , n ≥ 3, namely: if the Newtonian potential of a bounded domain is ”sufficiently concave”, then the domain is necessarily a ball. This result can be considered an unconventional overdetermined problem.This paper is based on a talk given by the author in Bologna at the ”Bruno Pini Mathematical Analysis Seminar”, which in turn was based on the paper P. Salani, A characterization of balls through optimal concavity for potential functions, Proc. AMS 143 (1) (2015), 173-183.

Keywords

• Potential theory
• Newtonian potential
• convexity
• geometric properties of solutions
• overdetermined problem