Blow-up Scenario Research Articles

Formal Asymptotics of Bubbling in the Harmonic Map Heat Flow

The harmonic map heat flow is a model for nematic liquid crystals and also has origins in geometry. We present an analysis of the asymptotic behavior of singularities arising in this flow for a special class of solutions which generalizes a known (radially symmetric) reduction. Specifically, the rate at which blowup occurs is investigated in settings with certain symmetries, using the method of matched asymptotic expansions. We identify a range of blowup scenarios in both finite and infinite time, including degenerate cases.