Harmonic maps with prescribed degrees on the boundary of an annulus and bifurcation of catenoids (Q342996)

Let \(A=\Omega\setminus\overline{\omega}\), where \(\Omega\) and \(\omega\) are smooth bounded simply connected domains and \(\overline{\omega}\subset \Omega\subset {\mathbb R}^2\). The authors consider functions \(u: A\mapsto {\mathbb C}\) such that \(\Delta u =0\) in \(A\), \(|u|=1\) and \(u\wedge\partial_{\nu}u =0\) a.e. on the boundary of \(A\). Here \(\nu\) stands for the outer unit normal of the boundary. The main results are theorems of existence of such functions with prescribed degrees on the components of the boundary.