Fourth order approximation of harmonic maps from surfaces (Q2501173)

Let \(M\) be a compact Riemannian surface and \(N\subset \mathbb{R}^n\) a compact manifold. The topic of this paper is the behaviour of sequences of critical points \(u_\varepsilon:M\to N\) of \(E_\varepsilon(u):=\int_M(| Du| ^2+\varepsilon| \Delta u| ^2)\) as \(\varepsilon\searrow0\) with uniformly bounded energy. It is proven that a subsequence converges weakly in \(W^{1,2}(M,N)\) and strongly away from finitely many points to a (smooth) harmonic map. In those finitely many points the lack of strong convergence is due to ``bubbling off'' of nontrivial harmonic \(2\)-spheres. Adding up the energy of all such spheres and of the limit map, one should get the limit of the energies of the \(u_\varepsilon\). This so-called energy identity is proven for Euclidean spheres as target manifold. The small higher order term is suspected to have a regularizing effect, but it is also responsible for a number of technical estimates in the proof. A major technical difficulty in the proof of the energy identity, compared to other studies of bubbling for the Dirichlet integral, is the fact that the \(L^2\) norms of the tension fields are not uniformly bounded in \(L^2\). This is dealt with by using Lorentz space methods, exploiting the duality of \(L^{2,1}\) and \(L^{2,\infty}\) in the spirit of [\textit{F.-H. Lin} \textit{T. Rivière} [Commun. Pure Appl. Math. 54, 206--228 (2001; Zbl 1033.58013)].