The Dirichlet problem for harmonic maps from the disk into the Euclidean n-sphere (Q1078753)

Let \(\Omega =\{(x,y)\in {\mathbb{R}}^ 2:\) \(x^ 2+y^ 2<1\}\), \(S^ n=\{v\in {\mathbb{R}}^{n+1}:\) \(| v| =1\}\), \(n\geq 2\), \(\gamma \in C^{2,\delta}(\partial \Omega,S^ n)\) a nonconstant function \((0<\delta <1)\), \(\Sigma_ p=\{\sigma \in C^ 0(S^{n- 2},W_{\gamma}^{1,p}(\Omega,S^ n)),\) \(\sigma\) is not homotopic to a constant\(\}\) where \(p>2\), \(W_{\gamma}^{1,p}(\Omega,S^ n)=\{u\in W^{1,p}(\Omega,S^ n):\quad u=\gamma \quad on\quad \partial \Omega \},\) \(\Sigma =\cup_{p>2}\Sigma_ p\) and \(c=\inf_{\sigma \in \Sigma}(\max_{s\in S^{n-2}}E(\sigma (s))\), where \(E(u)=\int_{\Omega}| \nabla u|^ 2 dx\). Then: Theorem. There exists at least \(u\in C^{2,\delta}({\bar \Omega},S^ n)\) such that \(E(u)=c\), \(-\Delta u=u| \nabla u|^ 2\), \(u|_{\partial \Omega}=\gamma\). Moreover if \(c=m\) there exist infinitely many u when \(n\geq 3\) (and at least two when \(n=2)\), where \(m=\inf \{E(u):\quad u\in H^ 1(\Omega,{\mathbb{R}}^{n+1}),\quad u|_{\partial \Omega}=\gamma,\quad | u| =1\quad a.e.\}.\)