# The heart of a convex body

created by brasco on 23 Feb 2012
modified on 27 Aug 2014

[BibTeX]

Accepted Paper

Inserted: 23 feb 2012
Last Updated: 27 aug 2014

Journal: Springer INdAM Series
Pages: 15
Year: 2012
Notes:

This paper has been written for possible publication in the proceedings of the conference "Geometric properties for parabolic and elliptic PDEs", held in Cortona in June 2011

Abstract:

We investigate some basic properties of the heart $\heartsuit(\mathcal{K})$ of a convex set $\mathcal{K}.$ It is a subset of $\mathcal{K},$ whose definition is based on mirror reflections of euclidean space, and is a non-local object. The main motivation of our interest for $\heartsuit(\mathcal{K})$ is that this gives an estimate of the location of the hot spot in a convex heat conductor with boundary temperature grounded at zero. Here, we investigate on the relation between $\heartsuit(\mathcal{K})$ and the mirror symmetries of $\mathcal{K};$ we show that $\heartsuit(\mathcal{K})$ contains many (geometrically and phisically) relevant points of $\mathcal{K};$ we prove a simple geometrical lower estimate for the diameter of $\heartsuit(\mathcal{K});$ we also prove an upper estimate for the area of $\heartsuit(\mathcal{K}),$ when $\mathcal{K}$ is a triangle.