Existence of the self-similar solutions in the heat flow of harmonic maps (Q1283086)

Let \((M,g)\) and \((N,h)\) be two compact Riemannian manifolds with \(\dim M= m\). We may embed \((N,h)\) isometrically into a Euclidean space \(\mathbb{R}^l\) so that \(N\) is a submanifold of \(\mathbb{R}^l\) with the induced metric. For a \(C^1\)-map \(u:M\to N\subset\mathbb{R}^l\), let \[ e(u)= {1\over 2}|\nabla u|^2={1\over 2} \sum^m_{i,j= 1} \sum^l_{k=1} g^{ij}{\partial u^k\over\partial x^i} {\partial u^k\over\partial x^j} \] be the energy density, and let \[ E(u)= \int_M e(u)dv_g \] be the energy of \(u\). Harmonic maps are the critical points of the energy functional \(E(u)\). If \(u\) is a smooth harmonic map then it satisfies the Euler-Lagrange equation \[ \tau(u)\equiv \Delta_M- A(u)(\nabla u,\nabla u)= 0, \] where \(\Delta_M\) is the Beltrami-Laplace operator on \(M\), and \(A(u)\) is the second fundamental form of \(N\) in \(\mathbb{R}^l\), and \(\tau(u)\) is called the tension field of \(M\). We consider the negative gradient flow of \(E(u)\) \[ u_t= \tau(u),\quad u(0,x)= u_0(x).\tag{1} \] Suppose that \(u(x,t)\in C^\infty(M\times [0,T),N)\) is a solution of (1), and \((x_0,T)\) is an isolated singularity. If \(u(x,t)\) satisfies \(|\nabla u(x,t)|^2\leq {C\over T-t}\) near \((x_0,T)\), then \((x_0,T)\) is called the singularity of the first kind. We will show that if \((x_0,T)\) is the singularity of the first kind, then the asymptotic behaviour of \(u(x,t)\) is analogous to a self-similar solution of (1) with the constraint of an energy condition. So we also call such singularities self-similar singularities. In the following, we will show that such self-similar solutions of (1) with the constraint of an energy condition actually exist.