Accepted Paper

Inserted: 10 aug 2021
Last Updated: 24 apr 2023

Journal: Revista Matemática Iberoamericana
Year: 2021

Abstract:

This paper is dedicated to a free boundary system arising in the study of a class of shape optimization problems. The problem involves three variables: two functions $u$ and $v$, and a domain $\Omega$; with $u$ and $v$ being both positive in $\Omega$, vanishing simultaneously on $\partial\Omega$ and satisfying an overdetermined boundary value problem involving the product of their normal derivatives on $\partial\Omega$. Precisely, we consider solutions $u, v \in C(B_1)$ of

$-\Delta u= f \quad\text{and} \quad-\Delta v=g\quad\text{in}\quad \Omega=\{u>0\}=\{v>0\}\ ,\qquad \frac{\partial u}{\partial n}\frac{\partial v}{\partial n}=Q\quad\text{on}\quad \partial\Omega\cap B_1.$

Our main result is an epsilon-regularity theorem for viscosity solutions of this free boundary system. We prove a partial Harnack inequality near flat points for the couple of auxiliary functions $\sqrt{uv}$ and $\frac12(u+v)$. Then, we use the gained space near the free boundary to transfer the improved flatness to the original solutions. Finally, using the partial Harnack inequality, we obtain an improvement-of-flatness result, which allows to conclude that flatness implies $C^{1,\alpha}$ regularity.

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