Two-phase heat conductors with a stationary isothermic surface

Abstract

We consider a two-phase heat conductor in ${\mathbb{R}}^N$ with $N\ge 2$ consisting of a core and a shell with different constant conductivities. Suppose that, initially, the conductor has temperature 0 and, at all times, its boundary is kept at temperature 1. It is shown that, if there is a stationary isothermic surface in the shell near the boundary, then the structure of the conductor must be spherical. Also, when the medium outside the two-phase conductor has a possibly different conductivity, we consider the Cauchy problem with $N\ge 3$ and the initial condition where the conductor has temperature 0 and the outside medium has temperature 1. Then we show that almost the same proposition holds true.

arXiv comment21 pages, to appear in Rendiconti dell'Istituto di Matematica dell'Università di Trieste