Existence of infinitely many weakly harmonic maps from a domain in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) into \(S^2\) for non-constant boundary data (Q5949026)

By using concepts of geometric measure theory, the author introduces first the concept of \(F\)-energy, which generalizes the concept of relaxed energy, [\textit{F. Bethuel}, \textit{H. Brézis}, and \textit{J.-M. Coron}, Variational methods, Proc. Conf., Paris/Fr. 1988, Prog. Nonlinear Differ. Equ. Appl. 4, 37-52 (1990; Zbl 0793.58011)], to adapt the approach of [\textit{T. Rivière}, see Sémin. Équ. Dériv. Partielles, Éc. Polytech., Cent. Math., Palaiseau 1991-1992, No. XIX, 8p. (1992; Zbl 0793.58012)]. The main result is the existence of infinitely many weakly harmonic maps from a domain of \(\mathbb{R}^n\) into \(S^2\) for non-constant smooth boundary data.