Energy convexity of intrinsic bi-harmonic maps and applications. I: Spherical target (Q2661297)

The paper under review studies weakly intrinsic biharmonic maps \(B^4\to S^n\) from a Euclidean unit \(4\)-ball into a sphere. Recall that extrinsic and intrinsic biharmonic maps are referred to smooth maps \(\varphi: M\to (N, h)\) which are the critical points of the extrinsic and the intrinsic bienergies \(E_{ext} (\varphi)=\frac{1}{2}\int_M |\tau(\varphi\circ i)|^2dv_g=\frac{1}{2}\int_M |\Delta \phi |^2 dv_g\) and \(E_{int} (\varphi)=\frac{1}{2}\int_M |\tau(\varphi)|^2dv_g\) respectively, where \(\phi=i\circ \varphi\), and \(i: (N, h)\to \mathbb{R}^{m}\) is an isometric imbedding of \((N, h)\) into a Euclidean space. Here the word ``weakly'' is used for the critical points from the mapping class \(W^{2,2}\).\\ A weakly intrinsic biharmonic map heat flow is the negative \(L_2\)-gradient flow of the intrinsic bienergy, which can be put in the form \(\frac{\partial \phi}{\partial t}=-\tau_2(\phi)\), where \(\tau_2(\phi)=\Delta^2 \phi-R^N(d \phi, \tau(\phi))d\phi\) is the intrinsic form of the bitension field of the map \(\phi\). Among the main results in the paper, the authors prove an energy convexity for weakly intrinsic bi-harmonic maps \(B^4\to S^n\) and a version of energy convexity along the intrinsic biharmonic map heat flow into \(S^n\). These are further used to show a uniqueness of weakly biharmonic maps from \(B^4\) into \(S^n\) and a long-time existence of the intrinsic bi-harmonic map heat flow.