Yang-Mills connections of homogeneous bundles (Q920411)

This paper deals with the application of the heat equation method and of the so-called direct method to the existence problem of Yang-Mills connections. Let \(M=G/H\) be a compact homogeneous Riemannian manifold, and consider a principal fiber bundle \(P=G\times_{\rho}K\) where K is a compact Lie group and \(\rho\) : \(H\to K\) is a homomorphism. Denote by \(C_ G\) the finite dimensional vector space of all G-invariant connections. With regard to the direct method, the author proves that, when H is a connected Lie group, the Yang-Mills functional YM \(|_{C_ G}\) is proper if and only if either \(\pi_ 1(M)\) is a finite group or the Lie algebra of K has no trivial factor as H-module. He also proves that the heat equation, with a G-invariant connection as initial data, has a solution which is a bounded curve in the space \(C_ G\). Thus the bundle P admits a Yang-Mills connection. Finally, the homogeneous complex situation is studied and the ``Mountain-pass'' lemma is proved for the functional YM \(|_{C_ G}\).