The Cauchy Problem for Wave Maps on a Curved Background

We consider the Cauchy problem for wave maps u: \R times M \to N for Riemannian manifolds, (M, g) and (N, h). We prove global existence and uniqueness for initial data that is small in the critical Sobolev norm in the case (M, g) = (\R^4, g), where g is a small perturbation of the Euclidean metric. The proof follows the method introduced by Statah and Struwe for proving global existence and uniqueness of small data wave maps u : \R \times \R^d \to N in the critical norm, for d at least 4. In our argument we employ the Strichartz estimates for variable coefficient wave equations established by Metcalfe and Tataru.Comment: Fixed minor typos in previous version. To appear in Calculus of Variations and Partial Differential Equation

Scattering for radial, semi-linear, super-critical wave equations with bounded critical norm

In this paper we study the focusing cubic wave equation in 1+5 dimensions with radial initial data as well as the one-equivariant wave maps equation in 1+3 dimensions with the model target manifolds $\mathbb{S}^3$ and $\mathbb{H}^3$. In both cases the scaling for the equation leaves the $\dot{H}^{\frac{3}{2}} \times \dot{H}^{\frac{1}{2}}$-norm of the solution invariant, which means that the equation is super-critical with respect to the conserved energy. Here we prove a conditional scattering result: If the critical norm of the solution stays bounded on its maximal time of existence, then the solution is global in time and scatters to free waves both forwards and backwards in infinite time. The methods in this paper also apply to all supercritical power-type nonlinearities for both the focusing and defocusing radial semi-linear equation in 1+5 dimensions, yielding analogous results.Comment: 59 pages, minor typos have been correcte

Relaxation of wave maps exterior to a ball to harmonic maps for all data

In this paper we study 1-equivariant wave maps of finite energy from 1+3-dimensional Minkowski space exterior to the unit ball at the origin into the 3-sphere. We impose a Dirichlet boundary condition at r=1, meaning that the unit sphere in R^3 gets mapped to the north pole. Finite energy implies that spacial infinity gets mapped to either the north or south pole. In particular, each such equivariant wave map has a well-defined topological degree which is an integer. We establish relaxation of such a map of arbitrary energy and degree to the unique stationary harmonic map in its degree class. This settles a recent conjecture of Bizon, Chmaj, Maliborski who observed this asymptotic behavior numerically.Comment: keywords: equivariant wave maps, concentration compactness, profile decomposition, soliton resolution conjecture. Fixed minor typos. To appear in GAF