The heat flow for the full bosonic string (Q2520746)

Let \((M, g)\) be a Riemann surface without boundary and let \((N, h)\) be a closed Riemannian manifold of dimension \(n \geq 3\). For a map \(\varphi : M \to N\) and a \(2\)-form \(B\) on \(N\), the full action for the bosonic string is given by \[ E(\varphi) = \int_M \left(\frac{1}{2}|d\varphi|^2 + \varphi^* B + R V(\varphi)\right)\, dv_g, \] where \(R\) denotes the scalar curvature of \((M, g)\) and \(V : N \to {\mathbb R}\) is a function. The critical points of the full bosonic string action are called harmonic maps with scalar and \(2\)-form potential. The critical points of the energy functional with scalar potential are called harmonic maps with potential. In this paper, the author investigates several analytic and geometric properties of these harmonic maps with scalar and \(2\)-form potential. First, the author derives the first and second variational formulas, and then compute Bochner type formula, stress-energy tensor and shows monotonicity formula. Finally, the author proves an existence result for harmonic maps with scalar and \(2\)-form by the heat-flow method.