The fractional Hopf differential and a weak formulation of stationarity for the half Dirichlet energy

Abstract

We obtain a weak formulation of the stationarity condition for the half Dirichlet energy, which can be expressed in terms of a fractional analogous to the Hopf differential. As an application we show that conformal harmonic maps from the disc are precisely the harmonic extensions of stationary points of the half Dirichlet energy on the circle. We also derive a Noether theorem and a Pohozaev identity for stationary points of the half Dirichlet energy.