1+1 wave maps into symmetric spaces

DOI10.4310/CAG.2004.V12.N1.A16zbMATH Open1082.37068arXivmath/0311074MaRDI QIDQ707478FDOQ707478

Authors: Chuu-Lian Terng, Karen Uhlenbeck 

Publication date: 9 February 2005

Published in: Communications in Analysis and Geometry (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We explain how to apply techniques from integrable systems to construct $2k$-soliton homoclinic wave maps from the periodic Minkowski space $S^{1}imes{R}^1$ to a compact Lie group, and more generally to a compact symmetric space. We give a correspondence between solutions of the -1 flow equation associated to a compact Lie group $G$ and wave maps into $G$. We use B"acklund transformations to construct explicit $2k$-soliton breather solutions for the -1 flow equation and show that the corresponding wave maps are periodic and homoclinic. The compact symmetric space $G/K$ can be embedded as a totally geodesic submanifold of $G$ via the Cartan embedding. We prescribe the constraint condition for the -1 flow equation associated to $G$ which insures that the corresponding wave map into $G$ actually lies in $G/K$. For example, when $G/K=SU(2)/SO(2)=S^2$, the constrained -1-flow equation associated to SU(2) has the sine-Gordon equation (SGE) as a subequation and classical breather solutions of the SGE are 2-soliton breathers. Thus our result generalizes the result of Shatah and Strauss that a classical breather solution of the SGE gives rise to a periodic homoclinic wave map to $S^2$. When the group $G$ is non-compact, the bi-invariant metric on $G$ is pseudo-Riemannian and B"acklund transformations of a smooth solution often are singular. We use B"acklund transformations to show that there exist smooth initial data with constant boundary conditions and finite energy such that the Cauchy problem for wave maps from $R^{1,1}$ to the pseudo-Riemannian manifold $SL(2,R)$ develops singularities in finite time.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0311074

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zbMATH Keywords

breatherhomoclinic orbitsine-Gordon equationwave maps

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Soliton equations (35Q51) KdV equations (Korteweg-de Vries equations) (35Q53) Lie-Bäcklund and other transformations for infinite-dimensional Hamiltonian and Lagrangian systems (37K35) Relations of infinite-dimensional Hamiltonian and Lagrangian dynamical systems with topology, geometry and differential geometry (37K25)

Cited In (10)

• Loop group decompositions in almost split real forms and applications to soliton theory and geometry
• Multisymplectic discretization of wave map equations
• Periodic and homoclinic solutions of the modified 2+1 chiral model
• Hyperbolic reduction
• Radially symmetric wave maps from \((1+2)\)-dimensional Minkowski space to the sphere
• A class of overdetermined systems defined by tableaux: involutiveness and the Cauchy problem
• A solvable string on a Lorentzian surface
• \(L^{ \text bf{ \infty }}\) bounds for Chern-Simons gauged equations in \(\mathbb{R}^{1 + 1}\) and their applications
• Global existence and scattering behavior for one dimensional wave maps into Riemannian manifolds
• The wave maps equation and Brownian paths

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