Finite time blow-up for the Yang-Mills heat flow in higher dimensions (Q5947791)

The Yang-Mills heat flow on a principal fibre bundle over an \(n\)-dimensional Riemannian manifold is the \(L^{2}\) gradient flow associated with the Yang-Mills action \({\mathcal F}(A) = \int_{M} F_{\mu \nu}F^{\mu \nu} d\text{vol}_{M}\), where \(A\) is a connection on the principal bundle, and \(F=F_{\mu \nu}dx^{\mu}dx^{\nu}\) is the associated curvature. In the setting of a trivial principal \(SO(n)\) bundle over \(\mathbb R^{n}\), \(n \geq 5\), the author finds smooth initial data in a class of \(SO(n)\)-equivariant connections for which the flow fails to be smooth after a finite time. Such ``blow-up'' behavior has been previously observed, but it was in the case of a nontrivial bundle [\textit{H. Naito}, Hokkaido Math. J. 23, 451-464 (1994; Zbl 0827.53022)]. In this proof, the author first shows that \(SO(n)\)-equivariance is preserved by the flow. He next constructs a subsolution with finite time blow-up, and proves a suitable maximum principle. He then finds initial data that satisfy the hypotheses of the maximum principle, and compares the resulting flow to the subsolution.