The coupled Yang-Mills-Higgs flow (Q2465814)

On a Riemannian vector bundle over a closed Riemannian manifold, the Yang-Mills-Higgs functional for a connection \(A\) and a section \(u\) of \(E\) is \[ YMH(A,u)=\int_M[| F_A| ^2+| D_Au| ^2+{1\over4}(1-| u| ^2)^2]\,dx. \] Here this functional is generalized to a functional that involves two vector bundles. For connections \(A_1\) on \(E_1\) and \(A_2\) on \(E_2\) and a section \(\phi\) of \(E_1\otimes E_2^*\) it reads \[ \begin{multlined} \text{CYMH}(A_1,A_2,\phi)=\int_M|F_{A_1}|^2+|F_{A_2}|^2+|D_{A_1\otimes A_2^*}\phi|^2\\ +{1\over 4}|\phi\circ\phi^*-\tau_1 Id_{E_1}|^2 +{1\over 4}|\phi^*\circ\phi-\tau_2 Id_{E_2}|^2.\end{multlined} \] where \(\tau_1,\tau_2\) are real parameters and \(\phi^*\) is the dual section. The motivation for this coupled Yang-Mills-Higgs functional may come from the fact that coupled vortices introduced by \textit{O. García-Prada} [Int. J. Math. 5, 1--52 (1994; Zbl 0799.32022)] are minimizers. In the current paper, the heat flow corresponding to the coupled Yang-Mills-Higgs functional is considered. Among the topics discussed are the energy inequality, Bochner-type inequality, monotonicity of certain quantities and small action regularity. Finally, subconvergence of a smooth solution to a coupled Yang-Mills-Higgs field is established, modulo gauge transformations, in smooth topology outside a closed set of Hausdorff codimension \(\geq4\).