Finite time blow-up for the harmonic map heat flow

Summary We consider the harmonic map heat flow from the three-dimensional ball to the two-sphere. We establish the existence of regular initial data leading to blow-up in finite time.     

Global existence and blow-up for harmonic map heat flow

For degree-one equivariant maps on bounded domains, the question of finite-time blow-up vs. global existence of solutions to the harmonic map heat flow has been well studied. In this paper we study the Cauchy problem for degree-m equivariant harmonic map heat flow from (2+1)-dimensional space-time into the 2-sphere with initial energy close to the energy of harmonic maps. It is proved that solutions are globally smooth for m?4, whereas for m=1, we show that finite-time singularities can form for this class of data.     

The heat flow and harmonic maps between complete manifolds

We consider the existence, uniqueness and convergence for the long time solution to the harmonic map heat equation between two complete noncompact Riemannian manifolds, where the target manifold is assumed to have nonpositive curvature. As an application, we solve the Dirichlet problem at infinity for proper harmonic maps between two hyperbolic manifolds for a class of boundary maps. The boundary map under consideration has finite many points at which either it is not differentiable or has vanishing energy density.     

Regularity of harmonic maps with the potential

The aim of this work is to prove the partial regularity of the harmonic maps with potential. The main difficulty caused by the potential is how to find the equation satisfied by the scaling function. Under the assumption on the potential we can obtain the equation, however, for a general potential, even if it is smooth, the partial regularity is still open.     

Brownian motion and the formation of singularities in the heat flow for harmonic maps

Summary We develop a general framework for a stochastic interpretation of certain nonlinear PDEs on manifolds. The linear operation of takin expectations is replaced by the concept of martingale means, namely the notion of deterministic starting points of martingales (with respect to the Levi-Civita connection) ending up at a prescribed state. We formulate a monotonicity condition for the Riemannian quadratic variation of such martingales that allows us to turn smallness of the quadratic variation into a priori gradient bounds for solutions of the nonlinear heat equation. Such estimates lead to simple criteria for blow-ups in the nonlinear heat flow for harmonic maps with small initial energy.This article was processed by the author using the Springer-Verlag TEX QPMZGHB macro package 1991.     

Stable self-similar blowup in the supercritical heat flow of harmonic maps

We consider the heat flow of corotational harmonic maps from \(\mathbb {R}^3\) to the three-sphere and prove the nonlinear asymptotic stability of a particular self-similar shrinker that is not known in closed form. Our method provides a novel, systematic, robust, and constructive approach to the stability analysis of self-similar blowup in parabolic evolution equations. In particular, we completely avoid using delicate Lyapunov functionals, monotonicity formulas, indirect arguments, or fragile parabolic structure like the maximum principle. As a matter of fact, our approach reduces the nonlinear stability analysis of self-similar shrinkers to the spectral analysis of the associated self-adjoint linearized operators.     

A remark on the finite time singularity of the heat flow for harmonic maps

In this paper we study the finite time singularities for the solution of the heat flow for harmonic maps. We derive a gradient estimate for the solution across a finite time singularity. In particular, we find that the solution is asymptotically radial around the isolated singular point in space at a finite singular time. It would be more desirable to understand whether the solution is continuous in space at a finite singular time.Received: 15 March 2001, Accepted: 16 June 2002, Published online: 17 December 2002     

Existence of the self-similar solutions in the heat flow of harmonic maps

It is proved that the heat equations of harmonic maps have self-similar solutions satisfying certain energy condition.     

A stochastic approach to the harmonic map heat flow on manifolds with time-dependent Riemannian metric

We first prove stochastic representation formulae for space–time harmonic mappings defined on manifolds with evolving Riemannian metric. We then apply these formulae to derive Liouville type theorems under appropriate curvature conditions. Space–time harmonic mappings which are defined globally in time correspond to ancient solutions to the harmonic map heat flow. As corollaries, we establish triviality of such ancient solutions in a variety of different situations.     

Uniqueness for the harmonic map flow from surfaces to general targets

LetM be a two-dimensional compact Riemannian manifold with smooth (possibly empty) boundary,N an arbitrary compact manifold. Ifu andv are weak solutions of the harmonic map flow inH ¹(Mx[0,T]; N) whose energy is non-increasing in time and having the same initial datau ₀∈H¹(M, N) (and same boundary values if ?M≠Ø) thenu=v. Combined with a result of M. Struwe, this shows any suchu is smooth in the complement of a finite subset ofM×(0,T)c.     

{\mathcal{F}} -stability of self-similar solutions to harmonic map heat flow

Inspired by the work of Colding and Minicozzi II: ”Generic mean curvature flow I: generic singularities”, we explore the notion of generic singularities for the harmonic map heat flow. We introduce ${\mathcal{F}}$ -functional and entropy for maps from Euclidean spaces. The critical points of the ${\mathcal{F}}$ -functional are exactly the weakly self-similar solutions to the harmonic map heat flow. We define the notion of ${\mathcal{F}}$ -stability for weakly self-similar solutions. The ${\mathcal{F}}$ -stability can be characterized by the semi-positive definiteness of the Jacobi operator acting on a subspace of variation fields.     

Sine-Laplace equation,sink - Laplace equation and harmonic maps

The relationship between harmonic maps from R² to S², H², S^T,1, S^1,1(–1) and the ± sinh — Laplace, ± sine — Laplace equation is found respectively. Existence theorems of some boundary value problems for the above harmonic maps are obtained. In the cases of H², S^1,1(+1), S^1,1(–1) the results are global.Research supported partially by the Institute for Applied Mathematics, Sonderforschungsbereich 72 of the University of Bonn     

Uniqueness for the harmonic map flow in two dimensions

LetM be a two-dimensional Riemannian manifold with smooth (possibly empty) boundary. Ifu andv are weak solutions of the harmonic map flow inH ¹(M×[0,T]; S^N) whose energy is non-increasing in time and having the same initial data u₀ H¹(M,S^N) (and same boundary values H ^3/2(M; S^N) if M; S^N Ø) thenu=v.     

Regularity of harmonic maps into a static Lorentzian manifold

We study the regularity of harmonic maps from Riemannian manifold into a static Lorentzian manifold. We show that when the domain manifold is two-dimensional, any weakly harmonic map is smooth. We also show that when dimension n of the domain manifold is greater than two, there exists a weakly harmonic map for the Dirichlet problem which is smooth except for a closed set whose (n − 2)-dimensional Hausdorff measure is zero.     

Bubbling of the heat flows for harmonic maps from surfaces

In this article we prove that any Palais-Smale sequence of the energy functional on surfaces with uniformly L²-bounded tension fields converges pointwise, by taking a subsequence if necessary, to a map from connected (possibly singular) surfaces, which consist of the original surfaces and finitely many bubble trees. We therefore get the corresponding results about how the solutions of heat flow for harmonic maps from surfaces form singularities at infinite time. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.