Asymptotic stability of the degree-one vortex in the abelian Yang-Mills-Higgs model

Abstract

We prove asymptotic stability of the degree-one vortex in the $(1+2)$-dimensional abelian Yang-Mills-Higgs model at the self-dual coupling, for small equivariant perturbations in weighted Sobolev spaces. The abelian Yang-Mills-Higgs model is a classical relativistic field theory on $(1+2)$-dimensional Minkowski space, describing a complex-valued field coupled to an electromagnetic potential and admitting topological solitons known as vortices. This paper is the final and main part of a three-paper series. Under the orthogonal gauge condition used here, perturbations of the vortex are governed by a system of nonlinear Klein-Gordon equations for the dynamical variables, coupled to an elliptic equation for the temporal component of the electromagnetic potential. The linearized operator has continuous spectrum $[1,\infty)$ and a single positive gap eigenvalue (internal mode) of multiplicity two, whose spectral properties, associated distorted Fourier theory, and linear decay estimates are developed in the two companion papers. The main difficulty is the long-time analysis of the coupled radiation--internal-mode dynamics. In two space dimensions the dispersive decay of the Klein-Gordon radiation is relatively weak, while the internal mode decays only on the long time scale dictated by nonlinear radiation damping. At the same time, the Klein-Gordon equations for the radiation contain non-spatially localized variable coefficient quadratic interactions, which cannot be treated perturbatively and require a normal form analysis. We prove decay of the radiation by combining a good-bad decomposition, a flat-sharp decomposition, and a space-time resonance analysis carried out relative to the flat Klein-Gordon flow. The passage between the flat analysis and the Klein-Gordon flow with potential is achieved through ILED and transference estimates derived from the distorted Fourier theory.