Interacting helical vortex filaments in the three-dimensional Ginzburg-Landau equation (Q2098194)

Summary: For each given \(n \geq 2\), we construct a family of entire solutions \(u_\varepsilon (z, t)\), \(\varepsilon > 0\), with helical symmetry to the three-dimensional complex-valued Ginzburg-Landau equation \[ {\Delta} u + (1 - |u|^2) u = 0, \quad (z, t) \in \mathbb{R}^2 \times \mathbb{R} \simeq \mathbb{R}^3. \] These solutions are \(2 \pi/ \varepsilon\)-periodic in \(t\) and have \(n\) helix-vortex curves, with asymptotic behavior, as \(\varepsilon \to 0\), \[ u_\varepsilon(z,t)\approx\prod_{j=1}^n W \left(z - \varepsilon ^{-1} f_j(\varepsilon t)\right), \] where \(W (z) = w (r) e^{i \theta}\), \(z = r e^{i \theta}\), is the standard degree \(+ 1\) vortex solution of the planar Ginzburg-Landau equation \({\Delta} W + (1 - |W|^2) W = 0\) in \(\mathbb{R}^2\) and \[ f_j (t) = \dfrac{\sqrt{n - 1} e^{i t} e^{2 i (j - 1) \pi/n}}{\sqrt{|\log \varepsilon|}}, \quad j = 1, \ldots, n. \] Existence of these solutions was previously conjectured by del Pino and Kowalczyk (2008), \(\mathbf{f} (t) = (f_1 (t), \ldots, f_n (t))\) being a rotating equilibrium point for the renormalized energy of vortex filaments derived there, \[ \mathcal{W}_\varepsilon (\mathbf{f}) := \pi \int_0^{2 \pi} \left(\frac{|\log \varepsilon|}{2} \sum_{k = 1}^n |f_k^\prime (t)|^2 - \sum_{j \neq k} \log |f_j (t) - f_k (t)|\right) \mathrm{d}t, \] corresponding to that of a planar logarithmic \(n\)-body problem. The modulus of these solutions converges to \(1\) as \(|z|\) goes to infinity uniformly in \((t)\), and the solutions have nontrivial dependence on \(t\), thus negatively answering the Ginzburg-Landau analogue of the Gibbons conjecture for the Allen-Cahn equation, a question originally formulated by H. Brezis.