Higher order Yang-Mills flow

Abstract

We define a family of functionals generalizing the Yang-Mills functional. We study the corresponding gradient flows and prove long-time existence and convergence results for subcritical dimensions as well as a bubbling criterion for the critical dimensions. Consequently, we have an alternate proof of the convergence of Yang-Mills flow in dimensions 2 and 3 given by Rade and the bubbling criterion in dimension 4 of Struwe in the case where the initial flow data is smooth.