A mean field type flow. II: Existence and convergence (Q2516653)

The paper under review is the continuation of [the author, Calc. Var. Partial Differ. Equ. 53, No. 1--2, 221--246 (2015; Zbl 1326.35031)]. Let \((M, g)\) be a compact Riemannian surface with boundary. The author studies a gradient flow related to the mean field type equation \[ -\Delta v + Q = \rho \frac{e^v}{\int_M e^v\, dv}, \] where \(\rho\) is a real number, \(Q \in C^\infty(M)\) is a given function such that \(\int_M Q \, dv = \rho\). The author considers existence and convergence of the evolution problem associated to the equation mentioned above. \[ \left\{ \begin{aligned} &\frac{\partial}{\partial t}e^v = \Delta v - Q + \rho \frac{e^v}{\int_M e^v\, dv} \\ &v(x, 0) = v_0(x) \end{aligned}\right. \] with initial data \(v_0 \in C^{2+\alpha}(M)\), \(\alpha \in (0,1)\). This is a gradient flow with respect to a functional which is unbounded from below (except in the case \(\rho < 8\pi\)) and above. The interest of this flow is that it satisfies some important geometric properties useful for its convergence. When \(Q\) is a constant equal to the scalar curvature of \(M\) with respect to the metric \(g\), the flow has been studied by \textit{M. Struwe} [Ann. Sc. Norm. Super. Pisa, Cl. Sci. (5) 1, No. 2, 247--274 (2002; Zbl 1150.53025)]. The author proves that for all initial data \(v_0 \in C^{2+\alpha}(M)\), with \(\alpha \in (0,1)\), all \(\rho \in {\mathbb R}\) and all functions \(Q \in C^\infty(M)\) such that \(\int_M Q \, dv = \rho\), then there exists a unique global solution \(v \in C^{{2+\alpha, 1+\alpha/2}}_{\text{loc}}(M \times [0, \infty))\) of the flow. The author also shows the convergence of the flow to a solution of the mean field type equation under a suitable hypothesis on its energy.