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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Bressan, Alberto, Galtung, Sondre T., Sun, Qing
Format: Preprint
Published: 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.05254
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Table of Contents:
  • The paper studies a class of variational problems, modeling optimal shapes for tree roots. Given a measure $μ$ describing the distribution of root hair cells, we seek to maximize a harvest functional $\mathcal{H}$, computing the total amount of water and nutrients gathered by the roots, subject to a cost for transporting these nutrients from the roots to the trunk. Earlier papers had established the existence of an optimal measure, and a priori bounds. Here we derive necessary conditions for optimality. Moreover, in space dimension $d=2$, we prove that the support of an optimal measure is nowhere dense.