Stability of the Sobolev--Escobar bridge inequality

Abstract

We study the local stability of the bridge family \[ Φ(T):=\inf_{u\in\mathcal A_T}\|\nabla u\|_{L^2(\mathbb R^n_+)}, \qquad T>0,\quad n\ge3, \] where \[ \mathcal A_T := \Bigl\{ u\in \dot H^1(\mathbb R^n_+): \|u\|_{L^{\frac{2n}{n-2}}(\mathbb{R}_{+}^n)}=1,\ \|u\|_{L^{\frac{2(n-1)}{n-2}}(\partial\mathbb{R}_{+}^n)}=T \Bigr\}, \] and \(\dot H^1(\mathbb R^n_+)\) is the completion of \(C_c^\infty(\overline{\mathbb R^n_+})\) in the norm \(\|\nabla φ\|_{L^2(\mathbb R^n_+)}\). Let \(\mathcal M_T\) denote the set of minimizers of \(Φ(T)\). We prove that, for every \(T\neq T_E\), there exists \(α_T>0\) such that \[ \|\nabla u\|_{L^2(\mathbb{R}_{+}^n)}^2-Φ(T)^2 \ge α_T\,d_T(u,\mathcal M_T)^2 +o\!\bigl(d_T(u,\mathcal M_T)^2\bigr) \qquad\text{for all }u\in\mathcal A_T, \] where \(T_E\) is the Escobar threshold and \(d_T\) is the distance in \(\dot H^1(\mathbb R^n_+)\).{for all }u\in\mathcal A_T, \] where \(T_E\) is the Escobar threshold and \(d_T\) is the distance in \(\dot H^1(\mathbb R^n_+)\).