A new proof of the Willmore inequality via a divergence inequality

Abstract: We present a new proof of the Willmore inequality for an arbitrary bounded domain $\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^{n}$ with smooth boundary. Our proof is based on a parametric geometric inequality involving the electrostatic potential for the domain $\Omega$; this geometric inequality is derived from a geometric differential inequality in divergence form. Our parametric geometric inequality also allows us to give new proofs of the quantitative Willmore-type and the weighted Minkowski inequalities by Agostiniani and Mazzieri.