Isoperimetric, Sobolev, and eigenvalue inequalities via the Alexandroff-Bakelman-Pucci method: a survey

Abstract

We present the proof of several inequalities using the technique introduced by Alexandroff, Bakelman, and Pucci to establish their ABP estimate. First, we give a new and simple proof of a lower bound of Berestycki, Nirenberg, and Varadhan concerning the principal eigenvalue of an elliptic operator with bounded measurable coefficients. The rest of the paper is a survey on the proofs of several isoperimetric and Sobolev inequalities using the ABP technique. This includes new proofs of the classical isoperimetric inequality, the Wulff isoperimetric inequality, and the Lions-Pacella isoperimetric inequality in convex cones. For this last inequality, the new proof was recently found by the author, Xavier Ros-Oton, and Joaquim Serra in a work where we also prove new Sobolev inequalities with weights which came up studying an open question raised by Haim Brezis.