Symmetry and quantitative stability for the parallel surface fractional torsion problem

Giulio Ciraolo, Serena Dipierro, Giorgio Poggesi, Luigi Pollastro, Enrico Valdinoci

Published 2021-10-07, updated 2022-10-11Version 2

We study symmetry and quantitative approximate symmetry for an overdetermined problem involving the fractional torsion problem in a bounded domain $\Omega \subset \mathbb R^n$. More precisely, we prove that if the fractional torsion function has a $C^1$ level surface which is parallel to the boundary $\partial \Omega$ then the domain is a ball. If instead we assume that the solution is close to a constant on a parallel surface to the boundary, then we quantitatively prove that $\Omega$ is close to a ball. Our results use techniques which are peculiar to the nonlocal case as, for instance, quantitative versions of fractional Hopf boundary point lemma and boundary Harnack estimates for antisymmetric functions. We also provide an application to the study of rural-urban fringes in population settlements.