A variational problem related to conformal maps

Abstract

In this paper we are concerned with a variational problem for a functional related to the conformality of maps between Riemannian manifolds. We give the first variation formula, the second variation formula, a kind of the monotonicity formula and a Bochner type formula. We also consider a variational problem of minimizing the functional in each 3-homotopy class of the Sobolev space.