On the finite time blow-up of biharmonic map flow in dimension four (Q1691823): Difference between revisions

Let $(M,g)$ be a closed Riemannian manifold of dimension four and $(N,h)$ be another closed Riemannian manifold, which is isometrically embedded in $\mathbb{R}^K$. Then the critical points of the functional \[ E(u)=\int_M |\triangle u|^2 dv \] are said to be biharmonic maps. In [Ann. Global Anal. Geom. 26, No. 4, 369--384 (2004; Zbl 1080.58017)], \textit{T. Lamm} proved that in dimension four, the following evolution equation, called biharmonic map flow: \[ \partial_t u =-\triangle^2 u +\triangle(B(u)(\nabla u,\nabla u)) +2\nabla \langle\triangle u\nabla P(u)\rangle -\langle \triangle P(u),\triangle u \rangle \] has a local solution for all smooth initial value, where $B$ is the second fundamental form of $N\subset \mathbb{R}^K$ and $P(u)$ is the projection from $\mathbb{R}^K$ to the tangent space $T_uN$. \par In this paper, the authors prove that, if $N'$ is any closed manifold of dimension $m>4$ with nontrivial $\pi_4(N')$ and $N=N' \# T^m$ is the connected sum of $N'$ with the torus of the same dimension, then for any Riemannian metric $g$ on $N$, one can find an initial map $u_0:S^4\to N$ such that the biharmonic map flow starting from $u_0$ develops finite time singularity.