The Skyrme model on Riemannian manifolds (Q1102017)

Let (M,g) and (N,h) be 3-dimensional compact Riemannian manifolds without boundary. For \(\rho\) : \(M\to N\) any smooth map let \[ E(\rho)=\int_{M}dv(g)\{\sigma_ 1(g^{-1}\rho \quad *h)+\sigma_ 2(g^{-1}\rho \quad *h)\}, \] where \(\sigma_ 1(A)=tr(A)\) and \(\sigma_ 2(A)=[tr(A)\) 2-tr(A 2)]. Suppose \(\psi\) : \(M\to N\) is a diffeomorphism and \(\tau\) is a constant with \(\psi\) \(*h=\tau\) 2g. It is shown that if \(\tau\) \(2\geq 1\) then \(\psi\) is an absolute minimizer of E(\(\rho)\) among all maps \(\rho\) of nonzero degree, and \(E(\psi)=3| M| (\tau\) \(2+\tau\) 4). Consideration is also given to the stability of the local minimum.