Regularity of minimizers for three elliptic problems: minimal cones, harmonic maps, and semilinear equations (Q2470772)

From the introduction: In this article we describe regularity results for three different nonlinear elliptic problems. They concern minimal cones, minimizing harmonic maps into a hemisphere, and radial local minimizers of semilinear elliptic equations. The three statements on regularity, their optimality, and also the methods used in their proofs, share very strong analogies. The three proofs use a method based on the (semi)-stability of minimizers (that is, on the nonnegativeness of the second variation of energy at a minimizer). The method originated in the paper of \textit{J. Simons} [Ann. Math. (2) 88, 62--105 (1968; Zbl 0181.49702)] on the area minimizing properties of cones. We emphasize that the regularity results that we describe hold for minimizers, but not for general solutions.