Global weak solutions of the Teichmüller harmonic map flow into general targets (Q1625441)

The Teichmüller harmonic map flow is a natural gradient flow of the harmonic map energy that evolves both a map from a closed Riemann surface \(M\) to an arbitrary compact Riemannian manifold \((N,g)\), and a constant curvature metric on the domain, in order to reduce its harmonic map energy as quickly as possible. The paper under review deals with finite-time singularities of the Teichmüller harmonic map flow. In the first part of the work, the authors analyze the metric component of the flow, while the second part of the article focuses on the analysis of the map component. The main results of the paper are Theorems 1.1, 1.4 and 1.7.