Home Mathematics A Sobolev gradient flow for the area-normalised Dirichlet energy of H 1 maps
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A Sobolev gradient flow for the area-normalised Dirichlet energy of H 1 maps

  • Shinya Okabe , Philip Schrader , Glen Wheeler ORCID logo EMAIL logo and Valentina-Mira Wheeler
Published/Copyright: August 29, 2025

Abstract

In this article we study the H 1 -gradient flow for the energy E [ X ] given by the quotient of the Dirichlet energy and the signed enclosed area of an H 1 map X : 𝕊 2 . We prove that solutions with initially positive signed enclosed area exist eternally, and converge as t to a (possibly multiply-covered) circle. In this way we recover an improved parametrised isoperimetric inequality for H 1 maps.


Communicated by Guofang Wang


Award Identifier / Grant number: 20KK0057

Award Identifier / Grant number: 21H00990

Award Identifier / Grant number:

Funding statement: This research was supported in part by the grants JSPS KAKENHI 20KK0057, 21H00990. The fourth author acknowledges support from ARC Discovery Project DP180100431 and ARC DECRA DE190100379.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the support provided from JSPS KAKENHI Grants 20KK0057 and 21H00990 to facilitate travel to Tohoku University where the majority of this research was completed.

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Received: 2024-07-17
Revised: 2025-07-23
Published Online: 2025-08-29
Published in Print: 2025-10-01

© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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