On a conjectured reverse Faber-Krahn inequality for a Steklov-type Laplacian eigenvalue

Abstract

For a given bounded Lipschitz set $\Omega$, we consider a Steklov--type eigenvalue problem for the Laplacian operator whose solutions provide extremal functions for the compact embedding $H^1(\Omega )\hookrightarrow L^2(\partial \Omega )$. We prove that a conjectured reverse Faber--Krahn inequality holds true at least in the class of Lipschitz sets which are "close" to a ball in a Hausdorff metric sense. The result implies that among sets of prescribed measure, balls are local minimizers of the embedding constant.