New Perspectives on Torsional Rigidity and Polynomial Approximations of z-bar

Abstract

We consider polynomial approximations of z-bar to better understand the torsional rigidity of polygons. Our main focus is on low degree approximations and associated extremal problems that are analogous to Polya's conjecture for torsional rigidity of polygons. We also present some numerics in support of Polya's Conjecture on the torsional rigidity of pentagons.