A direct variational approach to Skyrme's model for meson fields (Q1089977)

The solutions of Skyrme's variational problem describe the structure of mesons in a field of weak energy. The problem consists in minimizing the corresponding energy among the functions from \({\mathbb{R}}^ 3\) to \(S^ 3\) which have a fixed ''degree'' without making any symmetry assumptions. In more detail: Let \(\phi\) be a function from \({\mathbb{R}}^ 3\) to \(S^ 3\), and \[ {\mathcal E}(\phi)=(\gamma /4\pi^ 2)\int_{{\mathbb{R}}^ 3}(k^ 2| \nabla \phi |^ 2+| A(\phi)|^ 2)dx \] where \(| \nabla \phi |^ 2=\sum^{4}_{i=1}| \nabla \phi_ i|^ 2\) and \(| A(\phi)|^ 2=\sum^{3}_{\alpha,\beta =1}| \partial \phi /\partial x_{\alpha}\wedge \partial \phi /\partial x_{\beta}|^ 2.\) Let \(N(\phi)=(1/2\pi^ 2)\int_{{\mathbb{R}}^ 3}\det (\phi,\nabla \phi)dx\) the ''degree''-functional. Let X be the space of those functions \(\phi\) such that \(\nabla \phi,A(\phi)\in L^ 2({\mathbb{R}}^ 3,{\mathbb{R}}^ 4)\) and such that \(\phi\) may be approximated with respect to \({\mathcal E}\) by \(C^ 1\)-functions. Let \(I_ k=\inf \{{\mathcal E}(\phi)|\) \(N(\phi)=k\}.\) Theorems: (A) For \(k=1\) or \(k=-1\) there are functions \(\phi_ 1\), \(\phi_{-1}\) resp. such that \(N(\phi_ 1)=-N(\phi_{-1})=1\) and \({\mathcal E}(\phi_ 1)=I_ 1\) and \({\mathcal E}(\phi_{-1})=I_{-1}\). (Also an approximation property is given). - (B) For \(k\in {\mathbb{Z}}\setminus \{0,\pm 1\}\) and \(\ell \in {\mathbb{Z}}\setminus \{0,k\}\) assume \(I_ k<I_{\ell}+I_{k-\ell}\). Then there is a minimum for \(I_ k\).