A spectral isoperimetric inequality for cones

Abstract

In this note we investigate three-dimensional Schr\"odinger operators with $\delta$-interactions supported on $C^2$-smooth cones, both finite and infinite. Our main results concern a Faber-Krahn-type inequality for the principal eigenvalue of these operators. The proofs rely on the Birman-Schwinger principle and on the fact that circles are unique minimizers for a class of energy functionals. The main novel idea consists in the way of constructing test functions for the Birman-Schwinger principle.