This accessible introduction to harmonic map theory and its analytical aspects, covers recent developments in the regularity theory of weakly harmonic maps. The book begins by introducing these concepts, stressing the interplay between geometry, the role of symmetries and weak solutions. It then presents a guided tour into the theory of completely integrable systems for harmonic maps, followed by two chapters devoted to recent results on the regularity of weak solutions. A presentation of "exotic" functional spaces from the theory of harmonic analysis is given and these tools are then used for proving regularity results. The importance of conservation laws is stressed and the concept of a "Coulomb moving frame" is explained in detail. The book ends with further applications and illustrations of Coulomb moving frames to the theory of surfaces.

This volume (>Ie) NEMATICS Mathematical and Physical aspects constitutes the proceedings of a workshop which was held at l'Universite de Paris Sud (Orsay) in May 1990. This meeting was an Advanced Research Workshop sponsored by NATO. We gratefully acknowledge the help and support of the NATO Science Committee. Additional support has been provided by the Ministere des affaires etrangeres (Paris) and by the Direction des Recherches et Etudes Techniques (Paris). Also logistic support has been provided by the Association des Numericiens d'Orsay. (*) These proceedings are published in the framework of the "Contrat DRET W 90/316/ AOOO." v Contents (*) FOREWORD v INTRODUCTION 1. M. CORON, 1. M. GHIDAGLIA, F. HELEIN xi AN ENERGY-DECREASING ALGORITHM FOR HARMONIC MAPS F. ALOUGES 1 A COHOMOLOGICAL CRITERION FOR DENSITY OF SMOOTH MAPS IN SOBOLEV SPACES BETWEEN TWO MANIFOLDS F. BETHUEL, 1. M. CORON, F. DEMENGEL, F. HELEIN 15 ON THE MATHEMATICAL MODELING OF TEXTURES IN POLYMERIC LIQUID CRYSTALS M. C. CAmERER 25 A RESULT ON THE GLOBAL EXISTENCE FOR HEAT FLOWS OF HARMONIC MAPS FROM D2 INTO S2 K. C. CHANG, W. Y. DING 37 BLOW-UP ANALYSIS FOR HEAT FLOW OF HARMONIC MAPS Y. CHEN 49 T AYLOR-COUETTE INSTABILITY IN NEMATIC LIQUID CRYSTALS P. E. ClADIS 65 ON A CLASS OF SOLUTIONS IN THE THEORY OF NEMATIC PHASES B. D. COLEMAN, 1. T. JENKINS 93 RHEOLOGY OF THERMOTROPIC NEMATIC LIQUID CRYSTALLINE POLYMERS M. M. DENN, 1. A.

The original motivation of this study comes from the following questions that were mentioned to one ofus by H. Matano. Let 2 2 G= B = {x=(X1lX2) E 2; x~ + x~ = Ixl < 1}. 1 Consider the Ginzburg-Landau functional 2 2 (1) E~(u) = ~ LIVul + 4~2 L(lu1 _1)2 which is defined for maps u E H1(G;C) also identified with Hl(G;R2). Fix the boundary condition 9(X) =X on 8G and set H; = {u E H1(G;C); u = 9 on 8G}. It is easy to see that (2) is achieved by some u~ that is smooth and satisfies the Euler equation in G, -~u~ = :2 u~(1 _lu~12) (3) { on aGo u~ =9 Themaximum principleeasily implies (see e.g., F. Bethuel, H. Brezisand F. Helein (2]) that any solution u~ of (3) satisfies lu~1 ~ 1 in G. In particular, a subsequence (u~,.) converges in the w* - LOO(G) topology to a limit u*.

This volume (>Ie) NEMATICS Mathematical and Physical aspects constitutes the proceedings of a workshop which was held at l'Universite de Paris Sud (Orsay) in May 1990. This meeting was an Advanced Research Workshop sponsored by NATO. We gratefully acknowledge the help and support of the NATO Science Committee. Additional support has been provided by the Ministere des affaires etrangeres (Paris) and by the Direction des Recherches et Etudes Techniques (Paris). Also logistic support has been provided by the Association des Numericiens d'Orsay. (*) These proceedings are published in the framework of the "Contrat DRET W 90/316/ AOOO." v Contents (*) FOREWORD v INTRODUCTION 1. M. CORON, 1. M. GHIDAGLIA, F. HELEIN xi AN ENERGY-DECREASING ALGORITHM FOR HARMONIC MAPS F. ALOUGES 1 A COHOMOLOGICAL CRITERION FOR DENSITY OF SMOOTH MAPS IN SOBOLEV SPACES BETWEEN TWO MANIFOLDS F. BETHUEL, 1. M. CORON, F. DEMENGEL, F. HELEIN 15 ON THE MATHEMATICAL MODELING OF TEXTURES IN POLYMERIC LIQUID CRYSTALS M. C. CAmERER 25 A RESULT ON THE GLOBAL EXISTENCE FOR HEAT FLOWS OF HARMONIC MAPS FROM D2 INTO S2 K. C. CHANG, W. Y. DING 37 BLOW-UP ANALYSIS FOR HEAT FLOW OF HARMONIC MAPS Y. CHEN 49 T AYLOR-COUETTE INSTABILITY IN NEMATIC LIQUID CRYSTALS P. E. ClADIS 65 ON A CLASS OF SOLUTIONS IN THE THEORY OF NEMATIC PHASES B. D. COLEMAN, 1. T. JENKINS 93 RHEOLOGY OF THERMOTROPIC NEMATIC LIQUID CRYSTALLINE POLYMERS M. M. DENN, 1. A.

One of the most striking development of the last decades in the study of minimal surfaces, constant mean surfaces and harmonic maps is the discovery that many classical problems in differential geometry - including these examples - are actually integrable systems. This theory grew up mainly after the important discovery of the properties of the Korteweg-de Vries equation in the sixties. After C. Gardner, J. Greene, M. Kruskal et R. Miura 44] showed that this equation could be solved using the inverse scattering method and P. Lax 62] reinterpreted this method by his famous equation, many other deep observations have been made during the seventies, mainly by the Russian and the Japanese schools. In particular this theory was shown to be strongly connected with methods from algebraic geom etry (S. Novikov, V. B. Matveev, LM. Krichever. . . ), loop techniques (M. Adler, B. Kostant, W. W. Symes, M. J. Ablowitz . . . ) and Grassmannian manifolds in Hilbert spaces (M. Sato . . . ). Approximatively during the same period, the twist or theory of R. Penrose, built independentely, was applied successfully by R. Penrose and R. S. Ward for constructing self-dual Yang-Mills connections and four-dimensional self-dual manifolds using complex geometry methods. Then in the eighties it became clear that all these methods share the same roots and that other instances of integrable systems should exist, in particular in differential ge ometry. This led K."