A heat flow for special metrics (Q1759378)

Let \(M\) be a closed, oriented \(7\)-dimensional manifold. In this very interesting paper, the authors study, on the space of positive \(3\)-forms, a natural ``Dirichlet energy'' functional \(D(\cdot)\) whose critical points induce metrics with \(G_2\)-holonomy. In the first place, they prove a short-time existence and uniqueness result, namely that given a positive \(3\)-form \(\omega_0\) on \(M\), there exist \(\varepsilon>0\) and a smooth family of positive \(3\)-forms \(\omega(t)\), \(0\leq t\leq\varepsilon\), such that \[ \partial_t\omega=-\mathrm{grad}\,D(\omega),\quad\omega(0)=\omega_0, \] and in addition for any two given solutions \(\omega(t)\) and \(\omega'(t)\) one has that \(\omega(t)=\omega'(t)\) whenever defined. In the second place they prove a stability result, namely that given a torsion-free \(G_2\)-form \(\bar{\omega}\) on \(M\), for initial conditions sufficiently \(C^\infty\)-close to \(\bar{\omega}\) one has that the Dirichlet energy flow exists for all times and converges modulo diffeomorphisms to a torsion-free \(G_2\)-metric.