Regularity of unconstrained $p$-harmonic maps from curved domain and application to critical $p$-Laplace systems

Abstract

Given $p\geq 2$ and a map $g : B^n(0,1)\to S_n^{++}$, where $S_n^{++}$ is the group of positively definite matrices, we study critical points of the following functional: $$ v\in W^{1,p}\left(B^n(0,1);\mathbb{R}^N \right) \mapsto \int_{B^n(0,1)} |\nabla v|^p_g\, d\mathrm{vol}_g = \int_{B^n(0,1)} \left( g^{\alpha\beta}(x) \left\langle \partial_\alpha v(x), \partial_\beta v(x) \right\rangle \right)^{\frac{p}{2}}\, \sqrt{\det g(x)}\, dx. $$ We show that if $g$ is uniformly close to a constant matrix, then $v$ is locally H\"older-continuous. If $g$ is H\"older-continuous, we show that $\nabla v$ is locally H\"older-continuous. As an application, we prove that any H\"older-continuous solution to $|\Delta_{g,p}u|\lesssim |\nabla u|^p_g$ satisfies additional regularity properties depending on the regularity of $g$. In the case $p=n$, only the continuity is assumed \textit{a priori}.