Symmetric log-epiperimetric inequality for harmonic maps with analytic target and applications

Abstract

We establish a direct symmetric (log)-epiperimetric inequality for harmonic maps with analytic target and we leverage on this result to achieve a new proof of Simon's celebrated uniqueness of tangents with isolated singularity for energy minimizing harmonic maps. Moreover, we show that tangents at infinity of energy minimizing harmonic maps with suitably controlled energy growth are always unique, by exploiting the lower bound entailed in the symmetric (log)-epiperimetric inequality.