Energy with weight for \(S^2\)-valued maps with prescribed singularities (Q2388369)

This paper studies the Dirichlet energy with a scalar weight \(\omega\) in a smooth bounded and connected open subset of \({\mathbb R} ^3\) or in the full 3-dimensional space. In particular it considers the class of \(S^2\) valued maps with singularities located at given (finitely many) points and with total degree around the singularities equal to 0 (see \textit{Haim Brezis} [Bull. Am. Math. Soc., New Ser. 40, No. 2, 179--201 (2003; Zbl 1161.35354)] for an introduction). It turns out that the infimum of the Dirichlet energy on this class of functions may be written in terms of the minimal connection of the singularities with respect to the geodesic distance induced by \(\omega\) in a natural way. The stability of the infimum with respect to variations of the weight is also studied together with the stability of the related geodesic distance [see also \textit{Giuseppe Buttazzo, Luigi De Pascale} and \textit{Ilaria Fragalà}, Discrete Contin. Dyn. Syst. 7, No. 2, 247--258 (2001; Zbl 1025.49013)]. In the last section the author extend the formula for the infimum to the anisotropic case with continuous coefficients i.e. \(\omega\) is replaced by a \(3\times3\) elliptic matrix with continuous coefficients.