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Conformally Invariant Variational Problems. - SAM

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VI <strong>Conformally</strong>invariantcoerciceLagrangians<br />

with quadratic growth, in dimension 2.<br />

The resolution of the Plateau problem proposed by Douglas and<br />

Radó is an example of the use of a conformal invariant Lagrangian<br />

E to approach an “extrinsic” problem: minimizing the<br />

area of a disk with fixed boundary. The analysis of this problem<br />

was eased by the high simplicity of the equation (V.4) satisfied<br />

by the critical points of E. It is the Laplace equation. Hence,<br />

questions related to unicity, regularity, compactness, etc... can<br />

be handled with a direct application of the maximum principle.<br />

In the coming three chapters, we will be concerned with<br />

analogous problems (in particular regularity issues) related to<br />

the critical points to general conformally invariant, coercive Lagrangians<br />

with quadratic growth. As we will discover, the maximum<br />

principle no longer holds, and one must seek an alternate<br />

way to compensate this lack. The conformal invariance of the<br />

Lagrangian will generate a very peculiar type of nonlinearities<br />

in the correspondingEuler-Lagrangeequations. We willsee how<br />

the specific structure of these nonlinearitiesenable one to recast<br />

the equations in divergence form. This new formulation, combined<br />

to the results of integration by compensation, will provide<br />

the substrate to understanding a variety of problems, such as<br />

Willmore surfaces, poly-harmonic and α-harmonic maps, Yang-<br />

Mills fields, Hermitte-Einstein equations, wave maps, etc...<br />

We consider a Lagrangian of the form<br />

∫<br />

L(u) = l(u,∇u) dx dy , (VI.1)<br />

D 2<br />

where the integrand l is a function of the variables z ∈ R m and<br />

p ∈ R 2 ⊗R m , which satisfy the following coercivity and “almost<br />

quadratic” conditions in p:<br />

C −1 |p| 2 ≤ l(z,p) ≤ C |p| 2 ,<br />

42<br />

(VI.2)

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