A BIFURCATION ANALYSIS FOR RADIALLY SYMMETRIC ENERGY MINIMIZING MAPS ON ANNULUS

It would be interesting to know if energy minimizing harmonic maps between manifolds have symmetric properties when the manifolds under consideration have some. In this paper, we consider among others radial symmetry. A radially symmetric manifold M of dimension m is the one with a point, called a pole, and an O(m) action as an isometric rotation with respect to the pole, or more precisely a radially symmetric manifold M has a coordinate on which the metric is of the form $ds_{M}$$^2$ = d$r^2$ + m(r)$^2$d$\theta^2$ for some function m(r) depending only on r. Of course m(0) = 0, m'(0) = 1, and when m(r) = r, (M, $ds_{ M}$/$^2$) is the Euclidean space $R^2$.(omitted)