Existence of expanding harmonic map flows to hemispheres
Abstract
We show the existence of non-trivial self-expanding harmonic map flows starting from non-energy-minimizing 0-homogeneous maps to a regular ball or a closed hemisphere. In particular, given a non-minimizing but stationary 0-homogeneous harmonic map $u_0$ to a closed hemisphere, we construct infinitely many different weak solutions to harmonic map flow starting from $u_0$, all of which satisfy the parabolic monotonicity formula. We also use a concatenation argument to solve a non-trivial smooth harmonic map flow starting from a given non-minimizing regular 0-homogeneous harmonic map, thereby yielding the non-uniqueness of harmonic map flow with monotonicity formula. This answers a question of Struwe.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Geometric Analysis and Curvature Flows
Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations
Advanced Mathematical Physics Problems
Publication details
- Journal / source
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Publication date
- 9 February 2026
- Language
- EN
- Document type
- Preprint