Instantons and singularities in the Yang-Mills flow

Abstract

Several results on existence and convergence of the Yang-Mills flow in dimension four are given. We show that a singularity modeled on an instanton cannot form within finite time. Given low initial self-dual energy, we then study convergence of the flow at infinite time. If an Uhlenbeck limit is anti-self-dual and has vanishing self-dual second cohomology, then no bubbling occurs and the flow converges exponentially. We also recover Taubes's existence theorem, and prove asymptotic stability in the appropriate sense.

arXiv commentPublished version including extended background section, minor corrections, and many small changes, none affecting main theorems or proofs