Nonlocal phase transitions: rigidity results and anisotropic geometry

Abstract

We provide a series of rigidity results for a nonlocal phase transition equation. The prototype equation that we consider is of the form $$ (-\Delta)^{s/2} u=u-u^3,$$ with~$s\in(0,1)$. More generally, we can take into account equations like $$ L u = f(u),$$ where $f$ is a bistable nonlinearity and $L$ is an integro-differential operator, possibly of anisotropic type. The results that we obtain are an improvement of flatness theorem and a series of theorems concerning the one-dimensional symmetry for monotone and minimal solutions, in the research line dictaded by a classical conjecture of E. De Giorgi. Here, we collect a series of pivotal results, of geometric type, which are exploited in the proofs of the main results in the companion paper.