On the behaviour of the first eigenvalue of the $p$-Laplacian with Robin boundary conditions as $p$ goes to $1$

Abstract

In this paper we study the $\Gamma$-limit, as $p\to 1$, of the functional $$ J_{p}(u)=\frac{\displaystyle\int_\Omega |\nabla u|^p + \beta\int_{ \partial \Omega} |u|^p}{\displaystyle \int_\Omega |u|^p}, $$ where $\Omega$ is a smooth bounded open set in $\mathbb R^{N}$, $p>1$ and $\beta$ is a real number. Among our results, for $\beta >-1$, we derive an isoperimetric inequality for \[ \Lambda(\Omega,\beta)=\inf_{u \in BV(\Omega), u\not \equiv 0} \frac{\displaystyle |Du|(\Omega) + \min(\beta,1)\int_{ \partial \Omega} |u|}{\displaystyle \int_\Omega |u|} \] which is the limit as $p\to 1^{+}$ of $ \lambda(\Omega,p,\beta)= \displaystyle \min_{u\in W^{1,p}(\Omega)} J_{p}(u). $ We show that among all bounded and smooth open sets with given volume, the ball maximizes $\Lambda(\Omega, \beta)$ when $\beta \in$ $(-1,0)$ and minimizes $\Lambda(\Omega, \beta)$ when $\beta \in[0, \infty)$.