Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

The capillary energy functional is used to model the equilibrium shape of a liquid drop meeting a substrate at a prescribed interior contact angle. We will discuss a rigidity theorem for volume-preserving critical points of the capillary energy in the half-space: among all sets of finite perimeter, every such critical configuration corresponding to a prescribed contact angle between 90 degrees and 120 degrees must be a finite union of spheres and spherical caps with the correct contact angle. Assuming that the tangential part of the capillary boundary is $\mathcal{H}^n$-null, this rigidity extends to the full hydrophobic range of contact angles between 90 degrees and 180 degrees. We will also present an anisotropic counterpart, establishing rigidity under suitable lower density assumptions. This talk is based on joint work with A. De Rosa and R. Resende.