Calculus of Variations and Geometric Measure Theory

G. Canevari - F. L. Dipasquale - B. Stroffolini

Liftings of Sobolev maps into closed Riemannian manifolds via double coverings and minimal connections relative to planar sets, with an application to ferronematics

created by dipasquale on 05 Mar 2026

[BibTeX]

preprint

Inserted: 5 mar 2026

Year: 2026

ArXiv: 2603.01985 PDF

Abstract:

We consider Sobolev maps from a planar domain into a closed Riemannian manifold and their BV liftings via a double covering of the target. We establish a sharp lower bound on the jump length of the lifting, expressed in terms of a geometric quantity: the minimal connection, relative to the domain, of the non-orientable singularities. As an application, we analyse minimisers of a two-dimensional model of ferronematics under ``mixed'' boundary conditions -- that is, Dirichlet conditions for the liquid crystal order parameter and Neumann conditions for the magnetisation vector.