A strict maximum principle for nonlocal minimal surfaces

Abstract

In the setting of fractional minimal surfaces, we prove that if two nonlocal minimal sets are one included in the other and share a common boundary point, then they must necessarily coincide. This strict maximum principle is not obvious, since the surfaces may touch at an irregular point, therefore a suitable blow-up analysis must be combined with a bespoke regularity theory to obtain this result. For the classical case, an analogous result was proved by Leon Simon. Our proof also relies on a Harnack inequality for nonlocal minimal surfaces that has been recently introduced by Xavier Cabré and Matteo Cozzi and which can be seen as a fractional counterpart of a classical result by Enrico Bombieri and Enrico Giusti. In our setting, an additional difficulty comes from the analysis of the corresponding nonlocal integral equation on a hypersurface, which presents a remainder whose sign and fine properties need to be carefully addressed.