\(\text{SU}(3)\) Chern-Simons vortex theory and Toda systems (Q701094)

The authors deal with the \(\text{SU}(3)\) Toda system: \[ (P)_{\lambda_1,\lambda_2} \begin{cases}-\Delta w_j= \sum^2_{i=1} k_{ij}\lambda_i\left({e^{w_i}\over \int_M e^{w_i}}- {1\over|M|}\right)\quad &\text{on }M,\\ \int_M w_j= 0,\quad &j= 1,2,\end{cases} \] where \(K= (k_{ij})= \left(\begin{smallmatrix} 2 &-1\\ -1 & 2\end{smallmatrix}\right)\) is the Cartan matrix of the \(\text{SU}(3)\) Lie group, and \(\lambda_j\), \(j= 1,2\), are positive parameters. They study the variational problem associated with the system \((P)_{\lambda_1,\lambda_2}\) in a range of parameters, where the trivial solution is a strict local minimum and the corresponding Sobolev-type inequality fails to apply. The authors look for solutions of \((P)_{\lambda_1,\lambda_2}\) as the critical points of the action functional which are not minimizers. They show that under suitable assumptions on the data of \((P)_{\lambda_1,\lambda_2}\) the problem \((P)_{\lambda_1,\lambda_2}\) admits nontrivial solutions.