Multitime maximum principle approach of minimal submanifolds and harmonic maps

Abstract

Some optimization problems coming from the Differential Geometry, as for example, the minimal submanifolds problem and the harmonic maps problem are solved here via interior solutions of appropriate multitime optimal control problems. Section 1 underlines some science domains where appear multitime optimal control problems. Section 2 (Section 3) recalls the multitime maximum principle for optimal control problems with multiple (curvilinear) integral cost functionals and $m$-flow type constraint evolution. Section 4 shows that there exists a multitime maximum principle approach of multitime variational calculus. Section 5 (Section 6) proves that the minimal submanifolds (harmonic maps) are optimal solutions of multitime evolution PDEs in an appropriate multitime optimal control problem. Section 7 uses the multitime maximum principle to show that of all solids having a given surface area, the sphere is the one having the greatest volume. Section 8 studies the minimal area of a multitime linear flow as optimal control problem. Section 9 contains commentaries.