Torsional rigidity of submanifolds with controlled geometry

We prove explicit upper and lower bounds for the torsional rigidity of extrinsic domains of submanifolds P ^m with controlled radial mean curvature in ambient Riemannian manifolds N ⁿ with a pole p and with sectional curvatures bounded from above and from below, respectively. These bounds are given in terms of the torsional rigidities of corresponding Schwarz-symmetrization of the domains in warped product model spaces. Our main results are obtained using methods from previously established isoperimetric inequalities, as found in, e.g., Markvorsen and Palmer (Proc Lond Math Soc 93:253--272, 2006; Extrinsic isoperimetric analysis on submanifolds with curvatures bounded from below, p. 39, preprint, 2007). As in that paper we also characterize the geometry of those situations in which the bounds for the torsional rigidity are actually attained and study the behavior at infinity of the so-called geometric average of the mean exit time for Brownian motion.