Optimal Shape of a Blob

Abstract

This paper presents the solution to the following optimization problem: What is the shape of the two-dimensional region that minimizes the average L_p distance between all pairs of points if the area of this region is held fixed? [The L_p distance between two points ${\bf x}=(x_1,x_2)$ and ${\bf y}=(y_1,y_2)$ in $\Re^2$ is $(|x_1-y_1|^p+|x_2-y_2|^p)^{1/p}$.] Variational techniques are used to show that the boundary curve of the optimal region satisfies a nonlinear integral equation. The special case p=2 is elementary and for this case the integral equation reduces to a differential equation whose solution is a circle. Two nontrivial special cases, p=1 and p=\infty, have already been examined in the literature. For these two cases the integral equation reduces to nonlinear second-order differential equations, one of which contains a quadratic nonlinearity and the other a cubic nonlinearity.