An anisotropic Alt-Caffarelli problem of higher order (2505.20923v1)

Abstract: We study a higher order version of the Alt-Caffarelli problem in two dimensions, where the Dirichlet energy is replaced by an anisotropic bending energy. This extends a previous study of the isotropic case in [41]. It turns out that smooth anisotropies do not affect the optimal $C^{2,1}$-regularity of minimizers. The proof requires an anisotropic version of an estimate by Frehse for the fundamental solution of the bilaplacian. This generalization paves the way for further studies of various free boundary problems of higher order.