Deforming solutions of geometric variational problems with varying symmetry groups (Q2257450)

The authors prove an equivariant implicit function theorem for variational problems that are invariant under a varying symmetry group (corresponding to a bundle of Lie groups). Several applications of this abstract result are discussed in the context of geometric variational problems. A first application is a perturbation problem of CMC hypersurfaces in families of Riemannian manifolds with smoothly varying isometry groups. Then, the authors study the case of immersed submanifolds, possibly with boundary. A second application the authors discuss is given by perturbations of harmonic maps between Riemannian manifolds, where the metrics vary on both source and target manifolds. Finally, the authors consider a perturbation problem for Hamiltonian stationary Lagrangian submanifolds of a symplectic manifold \((M,\omega)\). More precisely, they consider a family of Riemannian metrics on \(M\) whose isometry groups act in a Hamiltonian fashion on \((M,\omega)\), obtaining a perturbation result of Lagrangian submanifolds that are Hamiltonian stationary with respect to a Kähler metric. This improves a result recently obtained before in [the first author, the second author and \textit{B. Santoro}, ``Equivariant deformations of Hamiltonian stationary Lagrangian submanifolds'', Mat. Contemp. (to appear), \url{arXiv:1302.6970}].