A Moser-Trudinger inequality for the singular Toda system

Abstract

In this paper we prove a sharp version of the Moser-Trudinger inequality for the Euler-Lagrange functional of a singular Toda system, motivated by the study of models in Chern-Simons theory. Our result extends those for the scalar case, as well as for the regular Toda system. We expect this inequality to be a basic tool to attack variationally the existence problem under general assumptions.