Uniqueness of planar tangent maps in the modified Ericksen model

Abstract

We prove the uniqueness of homogeneous blow-up limits of maps minimizing the modified Ericksen energy for nematic liquid crystals in a planar domain. The proof is based on the Weiss monotonicity formula, and a blow-up argument, originally due to Allard and Almgren \cite{AA} for minimal surfaces, and L. Simon \cite{SL} for energy-minimizing maps into analytic targets, which exploits the integrability of certain Jacobi fields.