Free Boundary Regularity for Almost-Minimizers

Abstract: In this paper we study the free boundary regularity for almost-minimizers of the functional \begin{equation*} J(u)=\int_{\mathcal O} |\nabla u(x)|^2 +q^2_+(x)\chi_{{u>0}}(x) +q^2_-(x)\chi_{{u<0}}(x)\ dx \end{equation*} where $q_\pm \in L^\infty(\mathcal O)$. Almost-minimizers satisfy a variational inequality but not a PDE or a monotonicity formula the way minimizers do (see [AC], [ACF], [CJK], [W]). Nevertheless we succeed in proving that, under a non-degeneracy assumption on $q_\pm$, the free boundary is uniformly rectifiable. Furthermore, when $q_-\equiv 0$, and $q_+$ is H\"older continuous we show that the free boundary is almost-everywhere given as the graph of a $C^{1,\alpha}$ function (thus extending the results of [AC] to almost-minimizers).