Yang-Mills connections of cohomogeneity one on \(SO(n)\)-bundles over Euclidean spheres (Q387414)

The author constructs Yang-Mills connections on \(\mathrm{SO}(n)\)-bundles over spheres equipped with the Euclidean metric. A cohomogeneity one group action on the bundle is used to reduce the Yang-Mills-equation to a system of ordinary differential equations. This system is shown to have solutions by variational methods, by using ideas from harmonic map theory. Examples are provided, which include Yang-Mills connections on each of the countably many principal \(\mathrm{SO}(6)\)-bundles over \(S^6\), and countably many Yang-Mills connections on \(TS^n\) for \(n\in\{5,\dots,9\}\).