Neck analysis of extrinsic polyharmonic maps (Q2407992)

Let \(\Omega\) be a smooth domain in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) and \(N\) be a smooth compact submanifold in \(\mathbb{R}^K\). Given a \(W^{2m,2}\) map \(u\) from \(\Omega\) to \(N\), consider the total energy \[ \mathcal{E}(u;\Omega)=\frac{1}{2}\int_{\Omega}|\nabla^m u|^2. \] The critical points of \(\mathcal{E}(u;\Omega)\) are called extrinsic polyharmonic maps. In this paper the authors consider the compactness of a sequence \(u_i\) of smooth extrinsic polyharmonic maps defined on \(B\) (the unit ball in \(\mathbb{R}^{2m}\)) with uniformly bounded energy. Assume this sequence converges locally smoothly on \(B\setminus\{0\}\) to \(u_{\infty}\) and that there exist \(\lambda_i\rightarrow 0\) such that \(v_i(x)=u_i(\lambda_ix)\) converges locally smoothly on \(\mathbb{R}^{2m}\) to \(\omega\). Under these conditions the authors study the behavior of \(u_i\) in the neck domain \(B_{\delta}\setminus B_{\lambda_iR}\), for \(\delta>0\) small and \(R>0\) large. Their two main results are the so-called energy identity (which implies that there is no energy loss in the neck domain) and the so-called no neck property (which implies that the image of \(u_{\infty}\) touches the image of \(\omega\)). The proof of these results follows the general framework of [\textit{L. Liu} and \textit{H. Yin}, Math. Z. 283, No. 3--4, 807--834 (2016; Zbl 1355.58004)]. The first part of the proof consists of comparing the map on the neck domain with its average on spheres. The difference between them is an approximate \(m\)-polyharmonic function for which a crucial three-circle lemma holds. The second part of the proof consists of a generalization of the classical Pohozaev identity. Both the three-circle lemma and the Pohozaev identity required new methods to be established.