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# The uniqueness of tangent cones for Yang-Mills connections with isolated singularities

## Introduction

The studies of singularities have been important in geometric analysis. Although in many cases our prime interests are in studying smooth solutions of certain geometric PDE’s, singular solutions arise naturally as the limits of sequences of smooth ones. The local behavior of a singularity is largely determined by the so called tangent cones. Tangent cones have been important in various kinds of regularity theories, and the use of them has been especially successful in the theory of minimal surfaces and harmonic maps (see for example the books , ,  and the paper ).

The uniqueness of tangent cones at a singular point of a geometric object is equivalent to the asymptotic convergence of the object to a tangent cone. This case provides the simplest possible nontrivial singularity and the local singularity of the geometric object would be better understood if we also know the rate of its asymptotic convergence to the unique cone.

The important work by Leon Simon  gave a general asymptotic convergence theorem for the solutions to a class of nonlinear evolution equations which arise naturally in certain geometric variational problems, especially in problems associated with tangent cones. In the same paper, L. Simon applied the general theorem to show the uniqueness of tangent objects for minimal surfaces and energy minimizing maps with the assumption that there exists a tangent object with an isolated singularity. An earlier work of W. Allard and F. Almgren  proves the case of minimal surfaces with the integrability assumption on the tangent cone.

This result and the methods of Leon Simon and its variants have been used and studied by many other people in different settings. The work Cheeger and Tian  proved a uniqueness theorem for cone structures at infinity of Ricci flat manifolds assuming that the cone at infinity being integrable. The work Morgan, Mrowka and Ruberman  studied the asymptotic limits of anti-self-dual connections with finite energy on a cylindrical 4-manifolds and gave applications to computations of Donaldson invariants.

In this paper, we proved the uniqueness of tangent cones of a Yang-Mills connection with an isolated singularity on manifolds of dimension greater than $`4`$, under a quadratic growth assumption on the curvature of the connection (see Theorem 1). We estimated the rate of asymptotic convergence of the connection to its cone. On the other hand, we have a faster convergence rate would be fast if we assume the tangent cone is integrable. There are parallel results for the cones at infinity of a Yang-Mills connection on an asymptotically flat manifold. The author has constructed examples of Yang-Mills connections with given tangent cones and with different rates of convergence to the cones in .

The difficulties of our proof mainly lies in the degenerate elliptic nature of the Yang-Mills equation. Under a good transverse gauge, the Yang-Mills equation become elliptic. If we have long time existence of the gauge, then our result will follow from an application of L. Simon’s result. The long time existence of this gauge, however, depends on the asymptotic convergence which we want to show. Our strategy to solve this dilemma is to find a suitably defined gauge and prove the long time existence of the gauge and the solution in one shot. In the proof of long-time existence and convergence in Section 3, we modified L. Simon’s methods in  to our case. The method is to divide the existence interval of the solution into three parts on which the norms of the solution have different growth behaviors. Roughly speaking, the norm of the solution is exponentially decreasing on the first interval, it is changing slowly on the second interval, and it is exponentially increasing on the third interval. These behaviors are modelled on those of the solutions to the linearized equation. One can then control the norms of the solution on the three intervals using different techniques. The first interval is easy. For the second interval we used the variational inequality by L. Simon (see Section 3.3) and for the last interval we have to use the properties of the gauge we constructed in Section 2.3, especially the property that under this gauge the time derivative of the connection is uniformly small on the existence interval.

One might expect that there are similar results for tangent cones for more general (not necessarily isolated) singularities, say, singularities which are higher dimensional submanifolds or subvarieties. The methods of this paper, however, do not directly apply to the more general case.

An application of the gauge we used gives a result for the Yang-Mills flow. We showed that the Yang-Mills flow exists for all time and has an asymptotic limit if the initial value is close to a smooth local minimizer of the Yang-Mills functional (see Corollary 1).

This paper is organized into four parts. In Section 1 we review backgrounds, set up notations and state our main results. In Section 2, we describe our procedure of fixing a suitable transverse gauge and the related estimates for connections under this gauge. In Section 3 we prove an asymptotic convergence theorem of certain solutions of a class of evolution equations and this gives long time existence of the gauge constructed in Section 2 and convergence of the connection at once. We also showed how we control the rate of the asymptotic convergence. Finally in Section 4, we proved the result stated above for the Yang-Mills flow.

Acknowledgment This work is based on the author’s thesis at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I am indebted to my advisor Gang Tian for his support and guidance in this work. I’d like to thank David Jerison, Richard Melrose, Tomasz Mrowka, Rich Schoen and Leon Simon for helpful suggestions and discussions. I also want to thank people at Brown, Columbia and Princeton who have attended my talk there and given helpful suggestions and encouragement.

## 1 Background, Notations and Main Results

### 1.1 Background and main theorems

We shall give a very brief background here. One may find more detailed information about Yang-Mills connections in, for example, the excellent book  and some recent analytic results we used in . We assume that $`M`$ is an n-dimensional manifold and $`P`$ is a principal bundle on $`M`$ with compact structure group $`G`$ which has Lie algebra $`𝔤`$. Suppose $`E`$ is a vector bundle associated to $`P`$ with a linear representation $`\rho :G\text{GL}(V)`$, where $`V`$ is the fiber type of $`E`$. $`\text{Aut}P=P\times _{\text{Ad}}G`$ is the principal bundle associated to the $`\text{Ad}`$ representation and we denote by $`𝔤_E`$ the associated bundle to $`\text{Aut}P`$ with the differential of $`\rho `$, $`d\rho :𝔤\text{End}(V)`$. $`𝔤_E`$ is a subbundle of $`\text{End}(E)`$. The connections considered in this paper will always be $`G`$-connections.

Let $`A`$ be a connection on $`E`$ which corresponds to a covariant derivative $`_A:\mathrm{\Gamma }(E)\mathrm{\Omega }^1(E)`$, which is $`G`$-equivariant . Under a trivialization $`\varphi :E|_UU\times V`$ on an coordinate open subset $`UM`$, $`A`$ has local expression $`_A=d+A_\varphi `$, where $`A_\varphi \mathrm{\Omega }^1(𝔤_E|_U)\mathrm{\Omega }^1(\text{End}(E|_U))`$ . We often suppress the subscript $`\varphi `$ and use $`A`$ for this local expression when the trivialization is clear in the context. The covariant differentiation $`_A`$ extends naturally to sections of various tensor bundles on $`M`$ with values in $`E`$ or $`\text{End}(E)`$. $`d_A=_A`$ gives the coupled exterior differential on forms on $`M`$ with values in $`E`$ or $`\text{End}(E)`$. In particular, in local coordinates,

$`d_A(\alpha )=d\alpha +A\alpha ,`$ (1.1)
$`d_A(\beta )=d\beta +[A,\beta ],`$ (1.2)
for $`\alpha \mathrm{\Omega }^{}(E)`$ and $`\beta \mathrm{\Omega }^{}(\text{End}(E))`$.

For a connection $`A`$ on $`E`$, the operator $`d_Ad_A:\mathrm{\Omega }^{}(E)\mathrm{\Omega }^{+2}(E)`$ is given by the algebraic operator $`F_A:\mathrm{\Omega }^{}(E)\mathrm{\Omega }^{+2}(E)`$, where $`F_A\mathrm{\Omega }^2(\text{End}(E))`$ is the curvature of $`A`$ and locally has the expression

$$F_A=dA+AA=dA+\frac{1}{2}[A,A].$$
(1.3)
The curvature $`F_A`$ satisfies the Bianchi identity

$$d_AF_A=0.$$
(1.4)
Let $`𝒜=\{\text{all connections on }E\}`$. The gauge group, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\text{Aut}P)`$, consists of bundle automorphisms of $`E`$ that preserve the base. The gauge action of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\text{Aut}P)`$ on $`𝒜`$ is given by

$$_{g(A)}(v)=g_Ag^1(v),$$

for $`g\mathrm{\Gamma }(\text{Aut}P)`$, $`A𝒜`$ and $`v\mathrm{\Gamma }(E)`$. (Another convention in literature is to let $`_{g(A)}=g^1_Ag`$.) Under local trivialization, if we write $`_A=d+A`$, $`_{g(A)}=d+g(A)`$, then

$$g(A)=gAg^1dgg^1.$$
(1.5)
We have, as the curvature is a tensor,

$$F_{g(A)}=gF_Ag^1.$$
(1.6)
Now we assume that $`M`$ is oriented and is given a Riemmanian structure $`g`$ and assume that $`E`$ is given a $`G`$-invariant metric $`h`$. The Yang-Mills functional $`\text{YM}:𝒜`$ is defined by

$$\text{YM}(A)=_M\left|F_A\right|^2𝑑V_g.$$

Here $`||^2`$ is given by the metrics $`g`$ and $`h`$.

We call $`A`$ a Yang-Mills connection if and only if $`A`$ is a critical point of $`\text{YM}`$ on $`𝒜`$. In other words, $`A`$ is Yang-Mills if and only if for any continuously differentiable family of connections $`\{A_t\}_{\epsilon <t<\epsilon },`$

$$\frac{d}{dt}|_{t=0}\text{YM}(A_t)=0.$$

A Yang-Mills connection $`A`$ satisfies the following Yang-Mills equation, which is the Euler-Lagrange equation for $`\text{YM}`$,

$$d_A^{}F_A=0.$$
(1.7)
In (1.7), $`d_A^{}:\mathrm{\Omega }^{}(\text{End}(E))\mathrm{\Omega }^1(\text{End}(E))`$ is the formal adjoint of $`d_A`$. The Bianchi identity (1.4) and Yang-Mills equation (1.7) together give a system of equations which is a nonlinear analogue of the equation for harmonic forms.

It follows by direct calculation that under local coordinates, if $`\alpha \mathrm{\Omega }^p(\text{End}(E))`$, then

$$d_A^{}(\alpha )=d^{}\alpha +(1)^{(p1)n+1}[A,\alpha ]=(1)^{(p1)n+1}d_A\alpha .$$

By using variations generated by a vector field on $`M`$, we have the following first variation formula for smooth Yang-Mills connections

$$_M|F_A|^2\text{div}X4\underset{1i<jn}{}F_A(_{e_i}X,e_j),F_A(e_i,e_j)dV_g=0.$$
(1.8)
This formula is true for any compactly supported $`C^1`$ vector field $`X`$ on $`M`$.
Definition.  A connection $`A`$ (possibly with singularities) is stationary if the first variation formula (1.8) is true for $`A`$ with any compactly supported $`C^1`$ vector field $`X`$ on $`M`$.

Assume that $`A`$ is a stationary connection. By using a cutoff of the radial vector field $`X=_{i=1}^nx_i\frac{}{x_i}`$, we have the following important monotonicity formula by Price  (see  for a variant version). Let $`\text{injrad}(x)`$ denote the injective radius of $`xM`$.

###### Propostion 1

If $`A`$ is a stationary connection on $`E`$, then for any $`xM`$, there exists positive constants $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=\mathrm{\Lambda }(x)`$ and $`r_x<\text{injrad}(x)`$ which only depend the supremum bound of curvature of $`M`$, such that if $`0<\sigma <\rho r_x`$, then

$`\rho ^{4n}e^{\mathrm{\Lambda }\rho }`$ $`{\displaystyle _{B_\rho (x)}}\left|F_A\right|^2𝑑V_g\sigma ^{4n}e^{\mathrm{\Lambda }\sigma }{\displaystyle _{B_\sigma (x)}}\left|F_A\right|^2𝑑V_g`$ (1.9)
$`4{\displaystyle _{B_\rho (x)B_\sigma \left(x\right)}}r^{4n}|{\displaystyle \frac{}{r}}F_A|^2dV_g`$
Remark. We remark here that if $`M^n`$ is the Euclidean space, then we can take $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$ and $`r_x=\mathrm{}`$ in the above proposition, and furthermore, the equality in (1.9) holds. In this case, we have, by differentiating the equation (1.9)

$$\rho ^{5n}_{B_\rho (x)}|F_A|^2(n4)\rho ^{4n}_{B_\rho (x)}|F_A|^2=4\rho ^{4n}_{B_\rho (x)}|\frac{}{r}F_A|^20.$$
(1.10)
Using the compactness theorems for $`L^p`$ connections with $`p>n`$ in Uhlenbeck , it is easy to show the following proposition.

###### Propostion 2

Assume $`\{A_i\}`$ is a sequence of smooth Yang-Mills connections on a bundle $`(E,h_i)`$ over $`(M,g_i)`$, with $`|F_{A_i}|`$ locally uniformly bounded in $`i`$. Assume that $`g_i`$ and $`h_i`$ converges smoothly to metrics $`g`$ and $`h`$ on compact sets of $`M`$. Then there exist a subsequence $`\{A_{i_j}\}`$, gauge transformations $`\sigma _j`$ on $`M`$ and a smooth Yang-Mills connection $`A`$ on $`E`$ over $`M`$ such that on any compact set $`KM`$, $`\sigma _j(A_{i_j})`$ converges to $`A`$ in $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$ topology.

For more general compactness theorems with only uniform bounds on the $`L^2`$ norms of the curvatures, we need to use a priori estimates to bound the pointwise norm of curvature and the convergence will be possible only away from a blow-up set – where the curvature energy of the sequence concentrate. This blow-up and weak compactness is familiar in other settings, as in the theories of minimal surfaces and harmonic maps. We refer the reader to Nakajima  and Tian  for some general compactness theorems.

We now assume that $`dimM5`$, $`x_0M`$ and $`A`$ is a Yang-Mills connection on a bundle $`E`$ over $`M\{x_0\}`$, i.e., $`A`$ has an isolated singularity at $`x_0`$. By a standard cutoff argument, we may show that (1.8) is true for $`A`$ with any $`C^1`$ compactly supported vector field $`X`$ and $`A`$ is stationary on $`M`$. We also assume that the curvature of $`A`$ satisfies the following quadratic growth condition in a neighborhood $`U`$ of $`x_0`$:

$$|F_A(x)|Cr^2,xU,$$
(1.11)
where $`r=\text{dist}(x,x_0)`$ on $`M`$. We may identify $`U`$ and an open set, say, $`B_1(0)`$ in $`T_{x_0}M^n`$, and denote the induced pullback metric on $`B_1(0)`$ also by $`g`$. For any $`\lambda (0,1)`$, let $`\tau _\lambda :T_xMT_xM`$ be the scaling map given by $`\tau _\lambda :v\lambda v`$. We may also lift $`\tau _\lambda `$ to a map on the bundle $`E`$ via a local trivialization. Define the scaling of the metrics $`g`$, $`h`$ and the connection$`A`$ by

$$g_\lambda =\lambda ^2\tau _\lambda ^{}g,h_\lambda =\tau _\lambda ^{}h,A_\lambda =\tau _\lambda ^{}A$$
(1.12)
Then for any $`0<\lambda <1`$, $`A_\lambda `$ is a stationary Yang-Mills connection with respect to $`g_\lambda `$ with an isolated singularity at $`0`$. Since $`A`$ is defined on $`B_1(0)\{0\}`$, it follows that $`A_\alpha `$ is defined on $`B_{\lambda ^1}(0)\{0\}`$. The metrics $`g_i`$ and $`h_i`$ converges smoothly to the standard metrics $`g`$ on $`^n`$ and $`h`$ on a trivial bundle coming from the metrics at $`0`$. The compactness property Prop. 2 now implies that for any sequence $`\lambda _i0`$, there is a subsequence that after gauge transformations, converges on compact sets of $`^n\{0\}`$ to a smooth Yang-Mills connection $`A_0`$ on $`^n\{0\}`$.

Definition. $`A_0`$ as above is called a tangent connection of the connection $`A`$ at $`x_0`$.

As in the case of minimal surfaces and harmonic maps, we expect $`A_0`$ to be radially homogeneous, i.e., a cone. Indeed, we have the following property for a tangent connection at a point (\[20, 5.3.1\]).

###### Lemma 1

With notations as above and let $`r=\text{dist}(x,0)`$, we have

$$\frac{}{r}F_{A_0}(x)=0,x^n\{0\}.$$
(1.13)
Proof. The stationarity of $`A_0`$ follows from the stationarity of $`\tau _{\lambda _i}^{}A`$ and the strong convergence on compact sets of $`^n\{0\}`$, or follows directly since singular set of $`A_0`$ is isolated, with codimension at least 5. Since $`^n`$ has the flat metric, by the remark following Prop. 1, we may take $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$ in the monotonicity formula (1.9) and

$`\rho ^{4n}`$ $`{\displaystyle _{B_\rho (0)}}\left|F_{A_0}\right|^2𝑑x\sigma ^{4n}{\displaystyle _{B_\sigma (0)}}\left|F_{A_0}\right|^2𝑑x`$ (1.14)
$`=4{\displaystyle _{B_\rho (0)B_\sigma (0)}}r^{4n}|{\displaystyle \frac{}{r}}F_{A_0}|^2dx`$
However, for any $`\rho >0`$, we have

$`\rho ^{4n}{\displaystyle _{B_\rho (0)}}`$ $`|F_{A_0}|^2dx=\underset{i\mathrm{}}{lim}(\lambda _i\rho )^{4n}{\displaystyle _{B_{\lambda _i\rho }(x)}}|F_A|^2𝑑V_g`$
$`=\underset{r0}{lim}r^{4n}{\displaystyle _{B_r(x)}}|F_A|^2𝑑V_g0`$
Therefore, both sides of (1.14) are zero and

$$_{B_\rho (0)B_\sigma (0)}r^{4n}|\frac{}{r}F_{A_0}|^2dx=0$$
(1.15)
This implies (1.13). q.e.d.

With the conclusion of the lemma, it is a standard fact that after a smooth gauge transformation on $`^n\{0\}`$, $`A_0`$ can be made into radially homogeneous, i.e., $`A_0=p^{}(A_0^{})`$ for some smooth Yang-Mills connection $`A_0^{}`$ on the trivial bundle over $`S^{n1}`$, where $`p:^n\{0\}S^{n1}`$ is the natural projection. We shall assume later that all tangent connections are in this radially homogeneous form. With some abuse of terminology, we shall call this $`A_0^{}`$ a tangent connection or a tangent cone of $`A`$ at $`x_0`$.

Remark. Our definition of tangent connections are of course not the most general. In fact, using the general compactness theorems in  and  which only assumes a uniform bound on the $`L^2`$ norms of the curvature and the monotonicity formula, a tangent connection may be defined for a stationary Yang-Mills connection with a singularity set $`S`$ at a singular point $`x_0S`$. We need some additional assumptions on $`S`$, though, for example, we may have to assume that $`C(S)=\{x=x_0+t(yx_0):yS,t(0,\mathrm{})\}`$ has zero $`(n4)`$-dimensional Hausdorff measure, or assume that $`S`$ is stratified by manifolds with dimension not greater than $`n4`$. These assumptions on $`S`$ are necessary because we don’t have the best possible removable singularity theorems for stationary Yang-Mills connections (for a good one, see ). In the case of Hermitian-Yang-Mills connections, we only need to assume the $`(n4)`$-dimensional Hausdorff measure of $`S`$ is finite (see ).

Now we are ready to state our main theorems. We assume that $`(M,g)`$ is of dimension $`n5`$, $`x_0M`$ and $`(E,h)`$ is a bundle over $`M\{x_0\}`$.

###### Theorem 1

Let $`A`$ be a smooth Yang-Mills connection on the bundle $`E`$ over $`M\{x_0\}`$. Assume that there exists $`C>0`$ and a neighborhood $`U`$ of $`x`$ such that

$$|F_A(x)|Cr^2,xU,$$

where $`r=\text{dist}(x,x_0)`$. Then the tangent connection of $`𝔸`$ is unique up to gauge transformations. In other words, there exists a smooth Yang-Mills connection on $`E|_{S^{n1}(x_0)}`$ over the unit sphere around $`x_0`$ and a gauge transformation $`\tau `$ on $`E|_{M\{x_0\}}`$ such that

$$A(r)\stackrel{C^{\mathrm{}}}{}A_0\text{as }r0,$$

where $`A(r)=\tau _r^{}(A)|_{S^{n1}(x_0)}`$ is the rescaled connection under the scaling map $`\tau _r:B_{r^1}(x_0)B_1(x_0)`$ as before. Furthermore, there exists constants $`C_k>0`$ and $`\alpha >0`$ depending on $`A`$, such that

$$|A(r)A_0|_{C^k(S^{n1})}C_k|\mathrm{log}r|^\alpha .$$

We call a smooth Yang-Mills connection $`A_0`$ on $`S^{n1}`$ integrable if for every solution $`a\mathrm{\Omega }^1(𝔤_E)`$ of

$$La=\mathrm{\Delta }_{A_0}a+(1)^n[a,F_{A_0}]=0,$$
(1.16)
where $`L`$ is, as in Section 3.1, the linearization of $`d_{A_0+a}^{}F_{A_0+a}`$ at $`0`$, there exists a path of Yang-Mills connections $`A(t)`$, $`t(\epsilon ,\epsilon )`$ with $`A(0)=A_0`$ such that

$$\frac{}{t}|_{t=0}A(t)=a.$$
(1.17)
This has the geometric meaning that $`A_0`$ has an integrable neighborhood in the moduli space of smooth Yang-Mills connections on $`S^{n1}`$ with tangent space at $`A_0`$ being given by the Jacobi fields at $`A_0`$, i.e., the solutions to (1.16).

###### Theorem 2

If in addition to the hypotheses of theorem 1, we assume that the tangent connection $`A_0`$ of $`A`$ is integrable, then there exists $`\alpha >0`$ and $`C_k>0`$ such that we have the following better control of convergence,

$$|A(r)A_0|_{C^k(S^{n1})}C_kr^\alpha .$$

Remark. 1) We remark that in the proof of Theorem 1, the monotonicity formula is only used to prove the desired rate of convergence. In , the author was able to construct examples of connections with a given smooth tangent cone with the convergence rates as in Theorem 1 and Theorem 2 respectively. These examples are defined on a ball with certain boundary values and the construction is achieved by a deformation-perturbation method. It would be interesting to construct examples defined on compact manifolds.
2) There are parallel results of Theorem 1 and 2 for the tangent cones at infinity of a Yang-Mills connection on bundles over $`^n`$ ($`n5`$), or more generally on an asymptotically flat manifold. We need to assume quadratic decay of the curvature there. The proofs will be the same. We leave the formulation to the reader.

### 1.2 Cylindrical coordinates and notations

Since our problem in Theorem 1 is of local nature, we may assume that $`E`$ is a bundle over the disk $`B_2(0)\{0\}`$. Consider the cylindrical coordinates, $`\varphi :B_{r_0}(0)S^{n1}\times [t_0,\mathrm{}),t_0=\mathrm{log}r_0`$ defined by

$$\varphi (x)=(\omega (x),t(x))=(\frac{x}{|x|},\mathrm{log}|x|).$$

We may assume that the disk $`B_2(0)`$ has the standard metric and the bundle $`E`$ has the product metric, because nonstandard metrics will only give a perturbation which is exponentially decaying in $`t`$ as $`t\mathrm{}`$ in the cylindrical coordinates and will not affect our proof later. We identify $`E`$ with $`(\varphi ^{})^1(E)`$.

Assume that $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ is a Yang-Mills connection on the bundle over $`B_2(0)\{0\}`$ and assume

$$(\varphi ^{})^1(\stackrel{~}{A})=A(t)+\beta (t)dt,$$

where $`A\mathrm{\Omega }^1(\text{End}E)`$, $`\beta \mathrm{\Omega }^0(\text{End}E)`$.

###### Lemma 2

The Yang-Mills equation $`d_{\stackrel{~}{A}}^{}F_{\stackrel{~}{A}}=0`$ is equivalent to the following system of equations,

$`\ddot{A}(n4)\dot{A}d_A^{}F_Ad_A\dot{\beta }+(n4)d_A\beta +(1)^{n+1}[\beta ,d_A\beta ]=0`$ (1.18)
$`d_A^{}(\dot{A}d_A\beta )=0`$ (1.19)
Proof. Recall that $`d_A^{}(\xi )=(1)^{n(p1)+1}(d\xi +[A,\xi ])`$, for $`\xi \mathrm{\Omega }^p(\text{End}E)`$ over an $`n`$-dimensional manifold. In considering $`(\varphi ^{})^1d_{\stackrel{~}{A}}^{}`$, we know that $`d`$ commutes with $`(\varphi ^{})^1`$, therefore we need to consider the behavior of $``$ under $`(\varphi ^{})^1`$. We denote by $`g_0`$ the standard metric in $`^n`$, by $`g`$ the standard product metric on $`S^{n1}\times `$, and by $`\stackrel{~}{g}=(\varphi ^{})^1(g_0)`$ the pushforward metric of $`g_0`$. Denote by $`_{n0}`$, $`_n`$, $`\stackrel{~}{}_n`$ and $``$ the Hodge operator associated to respectively $`g_0`$, $`g`$, $`\stackrel{~}{g}`$ and the standard metric $`S^{n1}`$. Let $`d_{n0}`$, $`d_n`$ and $`d`$ be the exterior differential on respectively $`^n`$, $`S^{n1}\times `$ and $`S^{n1}`$. If $`\{d\omega ^1,\mathrm{},d\omega ^{n1},dt\}`$ is a local orthonormal basis of $`T^1(S^{n1}\times )`$ with respect to $`g`$, by definition of $`\varphi `$, $`\{e^td\omega ^i,e^tdt\}`$ constitutes an orthonormal basis for $`\stackrel{~}{g}`$. Hence

$$\stackrel{~}{g}=e^{2t}g,\alpha ,\beta _{\stackrel{~}{g}}=e^{2\mathrm{deg}\beta t}\alpha ,\beta _g,dV_{\stackrel{~}{g}}=e^{nt}dV_g.$$
(1.20)
Therefore

$$\alpha \stackrel{~}{}_n\beta =\alpha ,\beta _{\stackrel{~}{g}}dV_{\stackrel{~}{g}}=e^{2\mathrm{deg}\beta t}\alpha ,\beta _ge^{nt}dV_g=e^{(n2\mathrm{deg}\beta )t}\alpha _n\beta .$$

That is

$$\stackrel{~}{}_n\beta =e^{(n2\mathrm{deg}\beta )t}_n\beta .$$

We can now carry out the calculation, first

$$d_{\stackrel{~}{A}}^{}F_{\stackrel{~}{A}}=(1)^{n+1}(_{n0}d_{n0}_{n0}F_{\stackrel{~}{A}}+_{n0}[\stackrel{~}{A},_{n0}F_{\stackrel{~}{A}}])$$

and we have

$$(\varphi ^{})^1(F_{\stackrel{~}{A}})=F_A(\dot{A}d_A\beta )dt$$

For simplicity of notation, let $`\eta =\dot{A}d_A`$.

$`(\varphi ^{})^1(_{n0}`$ $`d_{n0}_{n0}F_{\stackrel{~}{A}})=\stackrel{~}{}_nd_n\stackrel{~}{}_n(F_A\eta dt)`$
$`=e^{(n2)t}_nd_ne^{(n4)t}_n(F_A\eta dt)`$
$`=(1)^ne^{2t}\{(\dot{\eta }(n4)\eta d^{}F_A+(d\eta )dt\}`$
$`(\varphi ^{})^1(_{n0}`$ $`[\stackrel{~}{A},_{n0}F_{\stackrel{~}{A}}])=\stackrel{~}{}_n[A+\beta dt,\stackrel{~}{}_n(F_A\eta dt)]`$
$`=e^{2t}_n[A+\beta dt,_n(F_A\eta dt)]`$
$`=e^{2t}\{[A,F_A]+[\beta ,\eta ])+(1)^{n1}[A,\eta ]dt\}`$
Combining the above two equalities, we obtain

$$(\varphi ^{})^1(d_{\stackrel{~}{A}}^{}F_{\stackrel{~}{A}})=e^{2t}\{(\dot{\eta }(n4)\eta d_A^{}F_A+(1)^n[\beta ,\eta ])+d_A^{}\eta dt\}$$

$`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ is Yang-Mills if and only if the $`dt`$ part and the part without $`dt`$ above are zero. This together with the observation that $`[\dot{A},\beta ]=(1)^n[\beta ,\dot{A}]`$ give the desired system (1.18) and (1.19). q.e.d.

We shall use the above cylindrical coordinates in our proof and consider solutions to the system (1.18) and (1.19). Our arguments in this and the next chapter will work for more general settings, so we assume in the following of this paper that $`(E,h)`$ is a Euclidean vector bundle on a compact $`(n1)`$ -dimensional Riemannian manifold $`(M,g)`$ $`(n5)`$ with a compact structure group $`G`$, and $`P`$ is the associated principal bundle. We let the bundle $`E\times [t_0,\mathrm{})`$ and the manifold $`M\times [t_0,\mathrm{})`$ have the product metrics.

We shall use letters with tildes, $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$, $`\stackrel{~}{A}_1`$, etc to represent connections on the bundle $`E\times I`$ on $`M\times I`$, where $`I`$ is an interval of possibly infinite length. And we use $`A`$, $`A_0`$, $`B`$, etc to represent connections on bundle $`E`$ on $`M`$.

For simplicity, we shall assume that $`E`$ is trivial. For nontrivial $`E`$, our arguments still work if we fix a smooth connection $`A_0`$ on $`E`$ and replace $`A`$ by $`AA_0`$, $`d`$ and $`d^{}`$ by $`d_{A_0}`$ and $`d_{A_0}^{}`$ etc.

Definition. A connection $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ on the bundle $`E\times [t_0,\mathrm{})`$ a Yang-Mills connection if it satisfies the system (1.18) and (1.19).

Fix $`\mu (0,1)`$ and let $`k`$ be a nonnegative integer. We shall use in the following various Hölder norms and spaces. The norms may be defined by using partition of unity arguments, for example. The reason we use Hölder norms rather than Sobolev norms is that the restriction to submanifolds of $`C^{k,\mu }`$ functions are $`C^{k,\mu }`$ functions, which makes many statements simpler. However, it should be observed that the Sobolev norms also work for the proof with appropriate attention to the corresponding trace properties of Sobolev functions.

Let $`A(t)`$ be a section of a bundle over $`M\times I`$, with $`I`$ an interval. We shall use the following abbreviation,

$`|A(t)|_{C^{k,\mu }}`$ $`=`$ $`|A(t)|_{C^{k,\mu }(M)},`$
$`|A(t)|_{C^{k,\mu }(I)}`$ $`=`$ $`|A(t)|_{C^{k,\mu }(M\times I)}.`$
Note that the $`||_{C^{k,\mu }}`$ norm doesn’t count in the time derivatives. We define

$$\begin{array}{c}|A(t)|_{C^{(k,l),\mu }(I)}=\underset{0jk,0i+jk+l}{}\underset{I}{sup}|_M^i\frac{^j}{t^j}A(t)|_{C^0}\hfill \\ \hfill +\underset{0jk,0i+j=k+l}{}\underset{I}{sup}|_M^i\frac{^j}{t^j}A(t)|_{C^{0,\mu }}\end{array}$$
(1.21)
The spaces $`C^{(k,l),\mu }(I)`$ are defined by those bundle sections such that the norms as in (1.21) are finite. The difference between $`C^{(k,l),\mu }(I)`$ and $`C^{k+l,\mu }(I)`$ norms lies in that in the former we only take up to $`k`$-th derivatives for the variable $`t`$, thus distinguishing the ‘time’ dimension $`t`$ from the ‘spatial’ dimensions on $`M`$. We define the following space of connections,

$$𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)=\{A+\beta dt:A(t)C^{k,\mu }(I),\beta (t)C^{(k1,1),\mu }(I)\}.$$
(1.22)
and let the norm of $`𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)`$ be

$$|A+\beta dt|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)}=|A|_{C^{k,\mu }(I)}+|\beta |_{C^{(k1,1),\mu }(I)}$$
(1.23)
The reason for this definition will become clear in Section 2.2.

The natural space of gauges for connections in $`C^{k,\mu }(M)`$ is the space $`C^{k+1,\mu }(M)`$ of gauges. The natural space of gauges for connections in $`𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)`$ is given by gauges in $`C^{(k,1),\mu }(I)`$, because we see from the formula

$$g(A+\beta dt)=gAg^1dgg^1+(g\beta g^1\frac{g}{t}g^1)dt$$
(1.24)
that $`C^{(k,1),\mu }(I)`$ gauges is the minimal space of gauges that act on $`𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)`$ continuously.

For notations of $`L^2`$ and Sobolev norms, by fixing smooth covariant derivatives on $`E`$ and on $`E\times I`$, we define

$`A`$ $`=\left({\displaystyle _M}|A|^2𝑑\sigma \right)^{\frac{1}{2}},`$ $`A_{H^l}`$ $`=\left({\displaystyle \underset{0il}{}}{\displaystyle _M}|^iA|^2𝑑\sigma \right)^{\frac{1}{2}},`$
$`A(t)_I`$ $`=\left({\displaystyle _{M\times I}}|A(t)|^2𝑑t𝑑\sigma \right)^{\frac{1}{2}},`$ $`A(t)_{H^l(I)}`$ $`=\left({\displaystyle \underset{0i+jl}{}}{\displaystyle _{M\times I}}|^i_t^jA(t)|^2𝑑t𝑑\sigma \right)^{\frac{1}{2}}.`$
Sometimes we abuse notation and use a connection $`A`$ on $`M`$ to represent the time independent connection $`p^{}(A)`$ on $`M\times I`$; the meaning should be clear from the context. Gauge transformations are usually assumed to be in the natural space of gauges for the connections they act on; hence by $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\text{Aut}P)`$ we often mean $`C^{k+1,\mu }(M,\text{Aut}P)`$, etc. If $`A`$ is a connection on $`M`$, we let $`\text{Stab}(A)=\{\sigma \mathrm{\Gamma }(\text{Aut}P):\sigma (A)=A\}`$ be the stabilizer of $`A`$ in the gauge group.

Because the cylindrical coordinates $`\varphi `$ is a conformal map, the quadratic growth hypothesis on the curvature in Theorem 1 translates to the uniform bound condition on curvature

$$|F_{\stackrel{~}{A}}|=(|F_A|^2+|\dot{A}d_A\beta |^2)^{1/2}C,$$
(1.25)
for a connection $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ on $`E\times [0,\mathrm{})`$. For a Yang-Mills connection $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ with (1.24), Prop 2 implies the following compactness property,

###### Lemma 3

Given $`L>0`$. For any sequence of positive numbers $`\{R_i\}`$ going to infinity, there exists a subsequence $`i^{}`$, gauge transformations $`\sigma _i^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }(\text{Aut}P\times [R_i^{},R_i^{}+L])`$ and a Yang-Mills connection $`A`$ on $`M`$ of $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$, such that

$$\underset{i^{}\mathrm{}}{lim}|\sigma _i^{}(\stackrel{~}{A})A|_{C^{k,\mu }([R_i^{},R_i^{}+L])}=0$$

## 2 Constructions of Gauges

In this section we constructed the ‘standard form’ gauges for Yang-Mills connections with an isolated singularity in cylindrical coordinates with certain estimates on norms of the connection. These estimates will be important for us to prove the long-time existence of this gauge and convergence of the connection in the next section.

### 2.1 Some bounds of gauges

We give two well-known bounds about norms of gauges and connections in the following lemma.

###### Lemma 4

Let $`\stackrel{~}{A}_0`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{A}_1`$ be connections in $`C^{k,\mu }(I)`$. $`k0`$, $`0\mu 1`$. Assume that $`\sigma `$ is a gauge on the bundle $`E\times I`$, we have
a) If $`\mathrm{max}\{|\stackrel{~}{A}_0|_{C^{k,\mu }(I)},|\sigma (\stackrel{~}{A}_0)|_{C^{k,\mu }(I)}\}C`$, then there exists $`C_1=C_1(k,C)`$ such that

$$|\sigma |_{C^{k+1,\mu }(I)}C_1$$

b) There exists $`C=C(k)>0`$ independent of $`A_i`$ and $`\sigma `$ such that

$$|\sigma (\stackrel{~}{A}_1)\sigma (\stackrel{~}{A}_0)|_{C^{k,\mu }(I)}C(|\sigma |_{C^{k,\mu }(I)})^2|\stackrel{~}{A}_0\stackrel{~}{A}_1|_{C^{k,\mu }(I)}$$

Proof. a) We have

$$d_{\stackrel{~}{A}_0}\sigma =(\sigma (\stackrel{~}{A}_0)\stackrel{~}{A}_0)\sigma $$
(2.1)
We also observe the fact that $`|\sigma |_{C^0(I)}C`$ because the structure group $`G`$ of $`\text{Aut}P`$ is compact. Therefore we can apply a bootstrapping procedure to (2.1) and prove the required estimates. This estimate is standard, see for example \[4, 2.3.7\] .
b) We have

$$\sigma (\stackrel{~}{A}_1)\sigma (\stackrel{~}{A}_0)=\sigma (\stackrel{~}{A}_1\stackrel{~}{A}_0)\sigma ^1$$
(2.2)
Notice that $`d(\sigma ^1)=\sigma ^1d\sigma \sigma ^1`$ and therefore,

$$|\sigma ^1|_{C^{k,\mu }(I)}C(k)|\sigma |_{C^{k,\mu }(I)}$$
(2.3)
Combining (2.2) and (2.3), we have the required bounds. q.e.d.

Remark. The above lemma also holds if we look at other suitable spaces of connections and natural spaces of gauges acting on them. For example, the conclusion of the lemma hold if we replace the $`C^{k,\mu }(I)`$ norm for connections and the $`C^{k+1,\mu }(I)`$ and $`C^{k,\mu }(I)`$ norms for gauges by the $`𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)`$ norm for connections and the $`C^{(k,1),\mu }(I)`$ and $`C^{(k,0),\mu }`$ norms for gauges respectively. Similarly, the lemma holds for the $`C^{k,\mu }(M)`$ norm for connections and the $`C^{k+1,\mu }(M)`$ and $`C^{k,\mu }(M)`$ norm of gauges. We shall frequently use these bounds in the following, often implicitly.

Now we assume that $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ is a smooth Yang-Mills connection on $`E\times [t_0,\mathrm{})`$ with $`sup|F_{\stackrel{~}{A}}|C`$. In the following lemma we give a bound on the set of tangent connections of $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$. Here we regard tangent connections of $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ as Yang-Mills connections on $`E`$ over $`M`$ by time independence.

###### Lemma 5

Let $`𝒞`$ = {the set of tangent connections of $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ }, then there exists $`c_1=c_1(k,\stackrel{~}{A})>0`$ such that for any $`A𝒞`$, there exists $`gC^{k+1,\mu }(\text{Aut}P)`$ with $`|g(A)|_{C^{k,\mu }}c_1`$.

Proof. If $`A_0\mathrm{\Gamma }(M,^1(𝔤_E))`$ is a tangent Yang-Mills connection of $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$, then the bound on the curvature of $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ and the smooth convergence in Prop 2 imply that $`sup_{xM}|F_{A_0}(x)|C`$. Let $`A_i`$ be a sequence of tangent cones for $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$, then we may apply Prop 2 to obtain a subsequence $`A_i^{}`$ and gauge transformations $`g_i^{}`$, such that $`g_i^{}(A_i^{})`$ converges smoothly to a tangent cone $`A_0`$ of $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$. This compactness property implies the bound in the lemma, for any $`k0`$. q.e.d.

The following lemma will be useful in Section 2.3.

###### Lemma 6

Given $`L>0`$, $`\epsilon >0`$, there exists $`R_0=R_0(\epsilon ,L)>0`$ such that if $`RR_0`$, then there exists a gauge transformation $`g\mathrm{\Gamma }(\text{Aut}P\times [R,R+L])`$ and a tangent connection $`A`$ of $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$, such that

$`|g(\stackrel{~}{A})A|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }([R,R+L])}\epsilon ,`$ (2.4)
$`|A|_{C^{k,\mu }}c_1,`$ (2.5)
where $`c_1=c_1(k,\stackrel{~}{A})`$ is the constant given in Lemma 5.

Proof. Assume that the lemma is not true, then there exist $`\epsilon _j0`$ and $`R_j\mathrm{}`$ such that there does not exist tangent Yang-Mills connection $`A`$ such that (2.4) and (2.5) are true for $`R`$ replaced by $`R_j`$. By Lemma 3, there exist a subsequence $`\{j^{}\}`$ and $`g_j^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }(\text{Aut}P\times [R_j^{},R_j^{}+L])`$ such that $`g_j^{}(\stackrel{~}{A})|_{[R_j^{},R_j^{}+L]}\stackrel{𝒮^{k,\mu }}{}A`$, a tangent connection of $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$. By virtue of Lemma 5, up to a further $`C^{k+1,\mu }`$ gauge transformation on $`M`$, we may assume $`|A|_{C^{k,\mu }}c_1`$. Now taking $`j^{}`$ large will give us a contradiction. q.e.d.

### 2.2 Connections in standard form

For Yang-Mills connections, there is a standard way of fixing gauges, i.e. the Coulomb gauge (also called the Hodge gauge). We say that $`B`$ is in the Coulomb gauge relative to $`A`$ if

$$d_A^{}(BA)=0$$

(see \[4, 2.3.1\] or  for example). The above Coulomb gauge equation and the Yang-Mills equation (1.7) form an elliptic system. In the following, we find a suitable gauge which gives rise to an elliptic system for a connection $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ on $`E\times I`$, $`I`$ being an interval of possibly infinite length. Our choices of gauges are based on those in Morgan, Mrowka and Ruberman \[9, 2.4.3\]. The norms in the following proposition are natural to our setting.

###### Propostion 3

Assume that $`A_0`$ is a smooth connection on $`E`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{A}=A(t)+\beta (t)dt`$ is a smooth connection on $`E\times I`$ . There exist $`\epsilon _1=\epsilon _1(A_0)>0`$ and $`C=C(A_0)>0`$ such that if

$$|\stackrel{~}{A}A_0|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)}=|A(t)A_0|_{C^{k,\mu }(I)}+|\beta (t)|_{C^{(k1,1),\mu }(I)}\epsilon _1,$$
(2.6)
then there exists a gauge transformation $`gC^{(k,1),\mu }(I)`$, such that $`g(\stackrel{~}{A})=A_1(t)+\beta _1(t)dt`$ satisfies

$`d_{A_0}^{}(A_1(t)A_0)=0,`$ (2.7)
$`\beta _1(t)\text{Ker}(d_{A_0})^{},`$ (2.8)
$`|g(\stackrel{~}{A})A_0|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)}=|A_1(t)A_0|_{C^{k,\mu }(I)}+|\beta _1(t)|_{C^{(k1,1),\mu }(I)}C(1+|I|)^2|\stackrel{~}{A}A_0|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)},`$ (2.9)
$`|g\text{Id}|_{C^{(k,1),\mu }(I)}C(1+|I|)|\stackrel{~}{A}A_0|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)}.`$ (2.10)
where $`\text{Ker}(d_{A_0})^{}=\text{Ker}(d_{A_0}:\mathrm{\Gamma }(𝔤_E)\mathrm{\Omega }^1(𝔤_E))^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }(𝔤_E)`$. Furthermore, $`g`$ is unique up to the pullback of an element of $`\text{Stab}(A_0)`$, i.e., up to the composite with $`p^{}(\tau )\mathrm{\Gamma }(\text{Aut}P\times I)`$, where $`p:\text{Aut}P\times I\text{Aut}P`$ is the projection and $`\tau \text{Stab}(A_0)\mathrm{\Gamma }(\text{Aut}P)`$.

Following the terminology in , we make the following definition

Definition. We call the choice of gauge $`g(\stackrel{~}{A})=A_1(t)+\beta _1(t)dt`$ satisfying (2.7) and (2.8) in the above lemma a standard form of $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ around $`A_0`$.

Notice that the condition $`d_{A_0}^{}(A(t)A_0)=0`$ means $`A(t)`$ is in Coulomb gauge relative to $`A_0`$. In the lemma, if $`|I|=\mathrm{}`$, then (2.9) is vacuous.

Proof. We shall find the desired gauge in two steps.
Step 1.  We find a gauge under which the Coulomb gauge condition (2.7) and the bounds (2.9) and (2.10) are satisfied. Consider the gauge action map at $`A_0`$,

$`\mathrm{\Phi }:C^{k+1,\mu }(\text{Aut}P)`$ $`\times C^{k,\mu }(\mathrm{\Lambda }^1(𝔤_E))C^{k,\mu }(\mathrm{\Lambda }^1(𝔤_E))`$
$`(g,a)d_{A_0}gg^1+gag^1=g(A_0+a)A_0`$
The differential of this map at $`(0,0)`$ is

$`D\mathrm{\Phi }:C^{k+1,\mu }(𝔤_E)`$ $`\times C^{k,\mu }(\mathrm{\Lambda }^1(𝔤_E))C^{k,\mu }(\mathrm{\Lambda }^1(𝔤_E))`$
$`(h,b)d_{A_0}h+b`$
We can write down explicitly a right inverse of $`D\mathrm{\Phi }`$

$$(D\mathrm{\Phi })^1:C^{k,\mu }(\mathrm{\Lambda }^1(𝔤_E))(C^{k+1,\mu }(𝔤_E)\text{Ker}(d_{A_0})^{})\times (C^{k,\mu }(\mathrm{\Lambda }^1(𝔤_E))\text{Ker}(d_{A_0}^{}))$$

by $`(D\varphi )^1(a)=(h,b)`$, where

$$h=(d_{A_0}^{}d_{A_0})^1(d_{A_0}^{}a),b=a+d_{A_0}h.$$

Here we used the fact that

$$d_{A_0}^{}d_{A_0}:C^{k+1,\mu }(𝔤_E)\text{Ker}(d_{A_0})^{}C^{k1,\mu }(\mathrm{\Lambda }^1(𝔤_E))\text{Im}(d_{A_0}^{})$$
(2.11)
is invertible and has a continuous inverse. Using the implicit function theorem, we see that a right inverse $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ can be defined in a neighborhood of $`(0,0)`$. It is easy to see that map

$$\mathrm{\Psi }:C^{k,\mu }(\mathrm{\Lambda }^1(𝔤_E))UC^{k+1,\mu }(\text{Aut}P)\times C^{k,\mu }(\mathrm{\Lambda }^1(𝔤_E)\text{Ker}(d_{A_0}^{}))$$

is of class $`C^k`$ (note that the space of connections is affine here). If $`\mathrm{\Psi }(a)=(g,b)`$, then $`A_0+a=g(A_0+b)`$ and $`b\text{Ker}(d_{A_0}^{})`$. This $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ gives the well-known local slice structure for the configuration space of connections under gauge actions.

Now we assume that $`\stackrel{~}{A}=A(t)+\beta (t)dt=A_0+a(t)+\beta (t)dt`$ satisfies (2.6). In particular, $`|a(t)|_{C^{k,\mu }}\epsilon _1`$, $`tI`$. If $`\epsilon _1`$ is sufficiently small, for each fix $`t`$, we may define gauge transformation $`g(t)`$ by requiring that $`g(t)(A_0+a(t))=A_1(t)=A_0+a_1(t)`$ with $`a_1(t)\text{Ker}(d_{A_0}^{})`$, i.e., by letting

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(a(t))=(g^1(t),a_1(t)).$$

Although $`g(t)`$ is obtained separately for each $`t`$, we may view $`g`$ as a gauge transformation on $`E\times I`$, and we have

$$g(\stackrel{~}{A})=A_0+a_1(t)+(g(t)\beta (t)g(t)^1\frac{}{t}g(t)g^1)dt$$

Now that (2.7) is satsified, we need to show that $`gC^{(k,1),\mu }(I)`$ and the bounds (2.9) and (2.10) hold. We observe first that by the continuity of $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ on Hölder spaces,

$$\underset{tI}{sup}|g(t)\text{Id}|_{C^{k+1),\mu }}C\underset{tI}{sup}|a(t)|_{C^{k,\mu }}C|\stackrel{~}{A}A_0|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)}.$$
(2.12)
By differentiating the identity $`\mathrm{\Psi }(a(t))=(g^1(t),a_1(t))`$, we have

$$g^1\frac{}{t}g(t)g^1=D_1\mathrm{\Psi }_{a(t)}(\frac{}{t}a(t))$$
(2.13)
Since $`\frac{}{t}a(t)C^{k1,\mu }(\mathrm{\Lambda }^1(𝔤_E))`$ and

$$D_1\mathrm{\Psi }:C^{k1,\mu }(\mathrm{\Lambda }^1(𝔤_E))C^{k,\mu }(\text{Aut}P)$$

is a continuous map, we have

$$\underset{tI}{sup}|\frac{}{t}g|_{C^{k,\mu }}C\underset{tI}{sup}|\frac{}{t}a(t)|_{C^{k1,\mu }}C|\stackrel{~}{A}A_0|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)}$$
(2.14)
By taking further derivatives of (2.13) and using (2.6), we have

$$\underset{tI}{sup}|\frac{^j}{t^j}g|_{C^{k+1j,\mu }}C|\stackrel{~}{A}A_0|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)},\text{for }1jk\text{.}$$
(2.15)
(2.12) and (2.15) now imply (2.9) and (2.10). This completes the first step.

Step 2.  By the first step, we may assume $`\stackrel{~}{A}=A(t)+\beta (t)dt=A_0+a(t)+\beta (t)dt`$, $`a(t)\text{Ker}(d_{A_0}^{})`$ and (2.6) holds. We decompose $`\beta (t)`$ as follows,

$$\beta (t)=\beta _0(t)+\beta _1(t),\beta _0(t)\text{Ker}(d_{A_0}),\beta _1(t)\text{Ker}(d_{A_0})^{}.$$

Since $`\beta (t)C^{(k1,1),\mu }`$, by (2.11), we have $`\beta _1=(d_{A_0}^{}d_{A_0})^1(d_{A_0}\beta )C^{(k1,1),\mu }(I)`$ and $`\beta _0=\beta \beta _1C^{(k1,1),\mu }(I)`$ and

$$|\beta _1(t)|_{C^{(k1,1),\mu }(I)}+|\beta _0(t)|_{C^{(k1,1),\mu }(I)}C|\stackrel{~}{A}A_0|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)}.$$
(2.16)
By standard ODE theory, the following linear ordinary differential equation

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}& \frac{}{t}g=g\beta _0(t),tI\hfill \\ & g(0)=\text{Id}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(2.17)
has a solution $`gC^{k,\mu }(\text{Aut}P\times I)`$ (note $`g(t)`$ have one more derivative in $`t`$ than $`\beta _0(t)`$ ). Since $`\beta _0(t)\text{Ker}(d_{A_0})=\text{ the Lie algebra of }\text{Stab}(A_0)`$, it follows that $`g(t)\text{Stab}(A_0),tI`$. i.e. $`g(t)(A_0)=A_0`$, or equivalently,

$$d_{A_0}g(t)=0.$$
(2.18)
Applying $`g=g(t)`$ to $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$, we have by (2.17),

$$g(\stackrel{~}{A})=g(t)(A(t))+(g\beta (t)g^1\frac{g}{t}g^1)dt=A_0+a_1(t)+g(t)(\beta _1(t))dt,$$

where $`a_1(t)\text{Ker}(d_{A_0}^{})`$ and $`g(t)(\beta _1(t))=g(t)\beta _1(t)g(t)^1`$. The following lemma implies that $`g(\beta _1(t))\text{Ker}(d_{A_0})^{}`$, hence $`g(\stackrel{~}{A})`$ is in the standard form around $`A_0`$.

###### Lemma 7

Assume that $`A_0`$ is a connection on $`E`$, $`g\text{Stab}(A_0)`$ and $`AA_0+\text{Ker}(d_{A_0}^{})`$, then

$$g(A)A_0+\text{Ker}(d_{A_0}^{}).$$

If $`\beta \text{Ker}(d_{A_0})^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }(𝔤_E)`$, then

$$g(\beta )=g\beta g^1\text{Ker}(d_{A_0})^{}.$$

Proof. Since $`g(A_0)=A_0`$, we have

$`d_{A_0}^{}(g(A)A_0)`$ $`=d_{g(A_0)}^{}(g(A)g(A_0))=gd_{A_0}^{}g^1(g(AA_0)g^1)`$
$`=g(d_{A_0}^{}(AA_0))g^1=0`$
Hence $`g(A)A_0+\text{Ker}(d_{A_0}^{})`$. Similar to above, we can prove $`g\text{Stab}(A_0)`$ preserves $`\text{Ker}(d_{A_0})\mathrm{\Gamma }(𝔤_E)`$. Since gauge action preserves the metric on $`E`$, $`g`$ also preserves $`\text{Ker}(d_{A_0})^{}`$. q.e.d.

Next we show that the gauge $`g=g(t)`$ from (2.17) satisfies (2.9) and (2.10). Differentiating (2.17) on $`M`$ and integrating in $`t`$, we have

$`|g\text{Id}|_{C^{k,\mu }(I)}`$ $`C(|\beta _0|_{C^{(k1,1),\mu }(I)}+{\displaystyle _I}|\beta _0|_{C^{(k1,1),\mu }(I)}𝑑t)`$ (2.19)
$`C(1+|I|)|\stackrel{~}{A}A_0|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)}.`$
By differentiation of (2.18) with respect to $`t`$, we have

$$d_{A_0}\frac{g(t)}{t}=0.$$
(2.20)
The equations (2.19), (2.18) and (2.20) and the smoothness of $`A_0`$ enable us to bootstrap on the derivatives of $`g`$ on $`M`$. Hence we have $`gC^{(k,1),\mu }(I)`$ and the following estimates.

$$|g\text{Id}|_{C^{(k,1),\mu }(I)}C|g\text{Id}|_{C^{k,\mu }(I)}C(1+|I|)|\stackrel{~}{A}A_0|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)}$$
(2.21)
Because $`g(t)\text{Stab}(A_0)`$ by (2.18),

$`|g(\stackrel{~}{A})A_0|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)}`$ $`=|g(t)(A(t)A_0)|_{C^{k,\mu }(I)}+|g\beta _1g^1|_{C^{(k1,1),\mu }(I)}`$
by (2.16) $`C(1+|g\text{Id}|_{C^{k,\mu }(I)})^2|\stackrel{~}{A}A_0|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)}`$
by (2.19) $`C(1+|I|)^2|\stackrel{~}{A}A_0|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)}`$
The uniqueness of the standard form gauge (up to $`\text{Stab}(A_0)`$) is not hard and is left to the reader. q.e.d.

Remark. Note that in Step 1 of the proof above, we can not improve the number of time derivatives of the gauge action $`g`$ to be more than that of the connection, this is the reason why we work with $`C^{(k,1),\mu }(I)`$ gauges and $`𝒮^{k,\mu }`$ connections, which at the beginning may seem strange.

###### Lemma 8

Assume that $`I`$ is an interval of length $`L`$, $`0<\epsilon ^{}\tau ^{}\tau <1`$, $`\tau `$ is sufficiently small depending on $`A_0`$ and $`L`$, $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ is a connection on $`E\times I`$. $`A_0,A_1`$ are Yang-Mills connections on $`M`$ with

$`|A_1A_0|_{C^{k,\mu }}\tau ^{}`$ (2.22)
$`|\stackrel{~}{A}A_1|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)}\epsilon ^{}`$ (2.23)
Then there exist gauges $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }C^{(k,1),\mu }(I\times \text{Aut}P)`$ and $`\eta C^{k+1,\mu }(\text{Aut}P)`$ such that $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }(\stackrel{~}{A})`$, $`\eta A_1`$ are respectively in standard form and Coulomb gauge around $`A_0`$, and

$`|\eta (A_1)A_0|_{C^{k,\mu }}C\tau ^{}`$
$`|\stackrel{~}{\eta }(\stackrel{~}{A})\eta (A_1)|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)}C\epsilon ^{}`$
Proof. We follow the two-step construction of standard form gauges around $`A_0`$ in the proof of Prop. 3 to obtain $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }`$. $`\eta `$ is given by the usual Coulomb gauge around $`A_0`$, obtained in the first step of the proof of Prop. 3. By keeping track of the norms, it is easy to prove the lemma. We leave the details to the reader. q.e.d.

We state in the following lemma some elliptic estimates for Yang-Mills connections in standard form gauges and Coulomb gauges.

###### Lemma 9

a) Assume that $`A_0`$ is a smooth connection on $`E`$ over $`M`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{A}=A(t)+\beta (t)dt=A_0+a(t)+\beta (t)dt𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)`$ is a Yang-Mills connection in standard form around $`A_0`$. Then the following hold:
1) There exists $`\epsilon _1=\epsilon _1(A_0)>0`$, such that if $`|a(t)|_{C^{k,\mu }(I)}<\epsilon _1<1`$, we have

$$|\beta (t)|_{C^{(k1,1),\mu }}(I)C|a(t)|_{C^{k1,\mu }(I)}|\dot{a}|_{C^{k2,\mu }(I)}$$
(2.24)
for some constant $`C=C(A_0,k)>0`$. 2) There exists $`\epsilon _2=\epsilon _2(A_0)>0`$ such that if $`|\stackrel{~}{A}A_0|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)}<\epsilon _2`$, then for any $`s(0,(ba)/2)`$,

$$|\stackrel{~}{A}A_0|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I_s)}C(s)a(t)_{L^2(M\times I)},$$
(2.25)
for some constant $`C(s)=C(A_0,k,s)>0`$, where $`I_s=[a+s,bs]`$ if $`I=[a,b]`$.
b) Assume that $`A_1`$ is a Yang-Mills connection on $`M`$ in Coulomb gauge around a Yang-Mills connection $`A_0`$ then there exists $`\epsilon =\epsilon (A_0)>0`$, such that if $`|A_1A_0|_{C^{1,\mu }}<\epsilon `$, then

$$|A_1A_0|_{C^{k,\mu }}C(k)A_1A_0,k0.$$
(2.26)
Proof. Proof of a).  Let $`\dot{a}(t)=\frac{}{t}a(t)`$. It follows from (2.7) that $`d_{A_0}^{}\dot{a}=0`$. From one of the Yang-Mills equations (1.19), we have $`d_A^{}(\dot{a}d_A\beta )=0`$, hence

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_A\beta =d_A^{}d_A\beta =d_A^{}\dot{a}=d_{A_0}^{}\dot{a}[a,\dot{a}]=[a,\dot{a}]$$
(2.27)
For fixed $`t`$, if $`|A(t)A_0|_{C^{k,\mu }}`$ is sufficiently small, then $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{A(t)}:C^{k,\mu }\text{Ker}(d_{A_0})^{}C^{k2,\mu }\text{Im}(d_A^{})`$ is invertible. We denote the inverse by $`G_A`$. Hence

$$\beta =G_A([a,\dot{a}]),$$
(2.28)
Hence if $`|a|_{C^{k,\mu }(I)}<e_1<1`$, we have from (2.28) the estimates (2.24). We note that $`\beta (t)`$ has one less derivative in $`t`$ than $`a(t)`$. We also note that $`\beta `$ is of quadratic nature in terms of $`a`$.

Substitute (2.28) into the Yang-Mills equation (1.18) and use the Coulomb gauge condition (2.7), we have

$`\ddot{a}`$ $`(n4)\dot{a}d_A^{}F_{A_0+a}d_{A_0}d_{A_0}^{}a+d_A((G_A([a,\dot{a}]))^{}`$
$`(n4)d_AG_A([a,\dot{a}]))+(1)^{n+1}[G_A([a,\dot{a}]),d_AG_A([a,\dot{a}])]=0.`$ (2.29)
We observe that the left hand side of (2.29) is an (pseudo-differential) elliptic operator of $`a`$ on $`M\times I`$ if $`|a|_{C^{k,\mu }(I)}`$ is sufficiently small. If $`|\stackrel{~}{A}A_0|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)}`$ is sufficiently small, we have the following a priori interior estimates for connections in standard form,

$$|a(t)|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I_s)}C(s)a(t)_I,$$
(2.30)
where $`I_s=[a+s,bs]`$ if $`I=[a,b]`$ and $`s<\frac{ba}{2}`$. Combining the estimate (2.24), we obtain the estimate (2.25).

Proof of b).  The Yang-Mills equation and the Coulomb gauge condition give

$$d_{A_0+a}^{}F_{A_0+a}+d_{A_0}d_{A_0}^{}a=0$$
(2.31)
From which and bootstrapping, we obtain easily the estimate (2.26). q.e.d.

### 2.3 Standard form gauges with bounds for Yang-Mills connections

We shall prove the following key proposition, which provides us with a good gauge (actually, the standard form around some tangent connection) on an interval and a lower bound of the connection at the end of the maximal existence interval of such a gauge. This design of gauge is motivated by those in Cheeger and Tian .

###### Propostion 4

Assume $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ is a Yang-Mills connection on $`E\times [t_0,\mathrm{})`$ with $`sup_{M\times [t_0,\mathrm{})}|F_{\stackrel{~}{A}}|C`$. We fix a tangent Yang-Mills connection $`A_0`$ of $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$. Given $`L>0`$, $`R_1>0`$, there exists $`\tau _1=\tau _1(A_0,L)>0`$ and a function $`\epsilon _1=\epsilon _1(\tau )`$ satisfying $`0<\epsilon _1(\tau )<\tau `$ such that for $`0<\tau \tau _1`$ and $`0<\epsilon \epsilon _1(\tau )`$, there exist $`RR_1`$, integer $`2<N\mathrm{}`$, and gauge transformation $`g\mathrm{\Gamma }(\text{Aut}P\times [R,R^{}])`$, where $`R^{}=R+\frac{2}{3}NL`$, such that the following (a) and (b) hold:
(a) $`g(\stackrel{~}{A})=A(t)+\beta (t)dt`$ is of standard form around $`A_0`$.
(b) The following estimates hold,

$`|g(\stackrel{~}{A})A_0|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }([R,R+2L])}=|A(t)A_0|_{C^{k,\mu }([R,R+2L])}+|\beta (t)|_{C^{(k1,1),\mu }([R,R+2L])}\epsilon ,`$ (2.32)
$`|g(\stackrel{~}{A})A_0|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }([R,R^{}])}=|A(t)A_0|_{C^{k,\mu }([R,R^{}])}+|\beta (t)|_{C^{(k1,1),\mu }([R,R^{}])}\tau ,`$ (2.33)
$`|{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g(\stackrel{~}{A})|_{𝒮^{k1,\mu }([R,R^{}])}=|{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}A(t)|_{C^{k1,\mu }([R,R^{}])}+|{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\beta (t)|_{C^{(k2,1),\mu }([R,R^{}])}\epsilon ,`$ (2.34)
In particular, $`|A(t)A_0|_{C^{k,\mu }([R,R^{}])}\tau `$ and $`|\frac{}{t}A(t)|_{C^{k1,\mu }([R,R^{}])}\epsilon `$.
Furthermore, if $`N`$ is the maximal integer such that the above gauge $`g`$ can be extended to $`[R,R+\frac{2}{3}NL]`$ and (a) and (b) are satisfied, and $`N<\mathrm{}`$, then we have
(c)

$$\underset{[R^{}L,R^{}]}{sup}|A(t)A_0|_{C^{k,\mu }}c_2\tau ,$$
(2.35)
for some constant $`c_2=c_2(A_0,L)(0,1).`$

Remarks. (1) The condition on $`\epsilon `$ and $`\tau `$ means that $`\epsilon `$ is sufficiently small relative to $`\tau `$ and $`\tau `$ is sufficiently small relative to $`1`$. As a simplification, it can just be said as “If $`0<\epsilon <<\tau <<1`$ depending on $`A_0`$, $`L`$, then …”. We shall use this expression later to simplify our statements.

(2) (2.32) means that the connection is initially very close to the tangent connection $`A_0`$. (2.33) means that the connection stays bounded to $`A_0`$ on the existence interval $`[R,R^{}]`$. (2.34) means that the times derivative of the connection $`A`$ keeps being very small on $`[R,R^{}]`$. (2.35) means that the connection is at a distance away from $`A_0`$ at the end of the existence interval of the constructed gauge. In other words, if the connection stays within a certain distance to $`A_0`$, then the gauge would exist up to infinity. As we shall see later, (2.34) will play an important role in our proof of Theorem 1 and is well worth our efforts here.

Proof. Assume given $`L>0`$ and $`R_1>0`$. We consider numbers $`\epsilon _2,\epsilon ,\tau `$ with $`0<\epsilon _2<\epsilon <\tau `$, which will be determined later. Fix

$$R>\mathrm{max}\{R_1,R_0(\epsilon _2,3L)+L\},$$

with $`R_0`$ as in Lemma 6. Choose intervals

$$I_i=[R+\frac{2iL}{3}L,R+\frac{2iL}{3}],0i<\mathrm{}.$$

These intervals are chosen so that $`|I_i|=L`$, $`|I_iI_{i+1}|=\frac{1}{3}L`$ and $`I_iI_{i+2}=\mathrm{}`$. We have the following claim.

###### Claim 1

There exist constant $`c_2=c_2(A_0,L)`$, integer $`2<K\mathrm{}`$, Yang-Mills connections $`A_iC^{k,\mu }`$ in Coulomb gauge around $`A_0`$ and gauge $`g`$ on $`M\times _{r=1}^KI_i`$, such that $`g(\stackrel{~}{A})=A(t)+\beta (t)dt`$ is in standard form around $`A_0`$,

$`|g(\stackrel{~}{A})A_i|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I_i)}\epsilon ,0iK,`$ (2.36)
$`|A_iA_0|_{C^{k,\mu }}{\displaystyle \frac{\tau }{2}},0iK,`$ (2.37)
and additionally, if $`K`$ is maximal as such and $`K<\mathrm{}`$, then

$$\underset{tI_K}{sup}|A(t)A_0|_{C^{k,\mu }}c_2\tau ,$$
(2.38)
We first show that the claim implies our proposition. Assume the claim is true, we take $`N=K`$. (2.36) at $`i=0`$ gives (2.32). Differentiation of (2.36) with respect to $`t`$ gives (2.34). Combining (2.36) and (2.37) gives (2.33). (2.38) gives (2.35).

In the following, we prove the above claim by induction on $`i`$. For $`0i3`$, we note that by Lemma 3, there exists gauge $`g`$ on $`[RL,R+2L]=_{0i3}I_i`$ so that $`g(\stackrel{~}{A})`$ is in standard form around $`A_0`$ and

$`|g_0(\stackrel{~}{A})A_0|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }([RL,R+2L])}`$ $`\epsilon _2\epsilon `$
Hence we may let $`A_i=A_0`$, $`0i3`$. It is obvious that if $`\epsilon \frac{\tau }{2}`$, then (2.36), (2.37) are satisfied for $`0i3`$.

Assume that $`i4`$ and the claim is true for all integers $`j`$ such that $`ji`$. In the proof following, the constants $`C`$ we used only depend on $`L`$ and $`A_0`$. Assume that the induction hypothesis gives

$$g(\stackrel{~}{A})=A(t)+\beta (t)dt$$

on $`[RL,R+\frac{2i}{3}L]`$ and Yang-Mills connections $`A_j`$ for $`0ji`$ on $`M`$ such that (2.36) and (2.37) hold. If $`sup_{tI_i}|A(t)A_0|_{C^{k,\mu }}c_2\tau `$, where $`c_2=c_2(A_0,L)`$ is to be fixed later, then we are done by setting $`K=i`$. So we assume

$$\underset{tI_i}{sup}|A(t)A_0|_{C^{k,\mu }}c_2\tau .$$
(2.39)
We have by (2.36) and (2.39) ,

$$|A_iA_0|_{C^{k,\mu }}2c_2\tau ,$$
(2.40)
if $`\epsilon c_2\tau `$.

Lemma 6 gives a tangent Yang-Mills connection $`A_{i+1}^{}`$, and a gauge transformation $`g^{}`$ on $`I_{i+1}`$ such that

$`|g^{}(\stackrel{~}{A})A_{i+1}^{}|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I_{i+1})}\epsilon _2,`$ (2.41)
$`|A_{i+1}^{}|_{C^{k,\mu }}c_1,`$ (2.42)
Let $`t_i=R+\frac{2i}{3}L\frac{L}{6}`$ be the middle point of $`I=I_iI_{i+1}`$ and define $`h=g(t_i)g^{}(t_i)^1`$. By (2.36), (2.37), (2.41) and (2.42), we have

$`|g^{}(t_i)(A(t_i))|_{C^{k,\mu }}|A_{i+1}^{}|_{C^{k,\mu }}+C\epsilon _2C,`$
$`|h(g^{}(t_i)(A(t_i)))|_{C^{k,\mu }}=|g(t_i)(A(t_i))|_{C^{k,\mu }}|A_i|_{C^{k,\mu }}+C\epsilon C.`$
Hence by Lemma 4, we have

$$|h|_{C^{k+1,\mu }}C$$
(2.43)
Therefore,

$`|h(A_{i+1})A_i|_{C^{k,\mu }}|h(A_{i+1})h(g^{}(t_i)(A(t_i)))|_{C^{k,\mu }}`$
$`+|g(t_i)(A(t_i))A_i|_{C^{k,\mu }}C\epsilon _2+C^{}\epsilon C\epsilon `$ (2.44)
Let $`g^{\prime \prime }=hg^{}`$ on $`I_{i+1}`$, then by (2.40) and (2.41),

$`|g^{\prime \prime }(\stackrel{~}{A})h(A_{i+1}^{})|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I_{i+1})}=|h(g^{}(\stackrel{~}{A})A_{i+1}^{})h^1|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I_{i+1})}C\epsilon _2`$ (2.45)
$`|h(A_{i+1}^{})A_0|_{C^{k,\mu }}|h(A_{i+1}^{})A_i|_{C^{k,\mu }}+|A_iA_0|_{C^{k,\mu }}`$
$`C\epsilon _2+2c_2\tau Cc_2\tau `$ (2.46)
if $`\epsilon c_2\tau `$.

We observe from (2.45) and (2.46) that $`g^{\prime \prime }(\stackrel{~}{A})`$ and $`h(A_{i+1}^{})`$ satisfies (2.36) and (2.37) in the claim. But $`g^{\prime \prime }(\stackrel{~}{A})`$ is not in the standard form around $`A_0`$ yet.

In view of (2.45) and (2.46), we can apply Lemma 8 with $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$, $`A_1`$, $`I`$ and $`\epsilon ^{}`$, $`\tau ^{}`$ there replaced by $`g^{\prime \prime }(\stackrel{~}{A})`$, $`hA_{i+1}^{}`$, $`I_{i+1}`$, $`\epsilon _2`$ and $`c_2\tau `$. Thus there exists gauges $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }`$ on $`I_{i+1}`$ and $`\eta `$ on $`M`$ respectively, such that

$`|\stackrel{~}{\eta }g^{\prime \prime }(\stackrel{~}{A})\eta (h(A_{i+1}^{}))|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I_{i+1})}c_3\epsilon _2`$
$`|\eta h((A_{i+1}^{}))A_0|_{C^{k,\mu }}c_4c_2\tau `$
Compare $`g`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }g^{\prime \prime }`$ on $`I=I_{i+1}I_i`$, we see that they both make $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ into standard form around $`A_0`$, hence by the uniqueness of standard form gauges in Prop 3, they must differ by a pull back of $`\sigma \text{Stab}(A_0)C^{k+1,\mu }(M)`$, i.e. $`g=\sigma \stackrel{~}{\eta }g^{\prime \prime }`$ on $`I`$. Therefore we can extend $`g`$ to be over $`I_{i+1}`$ by letting

$$g|_{I_{i+1}}=\sigma \stackrel{~}{\eta }g^{\prime \prime }$$

Now we let $`A_{i+1}=\sigma \eta hA_{i+1}^{}`$, then $`g(\stackrel{~}{A})`$ and $`A_{i+1}`$ are respectively in standard form and Coulomb gauge around $`A_0`$, and

$`|g(\stackrel{~}{A})A_{i+1}|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I_{i+1})}C|\stackrel{~}{\eta }g^{\prime \prime }(\stackrel{~}{A})\eta hA_{i+1}^{}|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I_{i+1})}c_5\epsilon _2`$
$`|A_{i+1}A_0|_{C^{k,\mu }}C|\eta hA_{i+1}^{}A_0|_{C^{k,\mu }}c_6c_2\tau `$
Finally, if we choose$`c_2`$, $`\epsilon _2`$ sufficiently small such that $`c_6c_2\frac{1}{2}`$, $`c_5\epsilon _2\epsilon `$ and $`0<<\epsilon <<\tau <<1`$ satisfying all the requirements in the proof above, then (2.36) and (2.37) are true for $`i+1`$ and the induction step of the claim follows. q.e.d.

### 2.4 $`L^2`$ estimates of solutions at the end of maximal existence interval

In the following proposition, we show that in the gauge constructed in Prop. 4, near the end of the maximal existence interval $`[R,R^{}]`$ (if this is finite), the $`L^2`$ norms of the connection is bounded away from zero and in average do not change much with respect to time $`t`$.

###### Propostion 5

Given $`L>0`$ and $`1>\eta >0`$, if $`0<\epsilon <<\tau <<1`$ depending on $`A_0`$, $`L`$ and $`\eta `$, and $`\stackrel{~}{A}=A(t)+\beta (t)dt`$ is a Yang-Mills connection and in the gauge on $`[R,R^{}]=[R,R+\frac{2}{3}NL]`$ with respect to $`\epsilon ,\tau `$ as in Prop. 4 and assume that $`N<\mathrm{}`$ is maximal there so that (c) in Prop. 4 holds, then

$`\underset{t[R^{}L,R^{}]}{sup}A(t)A_0(1+\eta )\underset{t[R^{}2L,R^{}L]}{sup}A(t)A_0,`$ (2.47)
$`\underset{t[R^{}L,R^{}]}{sup}A(t)A_0c\tau ,`$ (2.48)
for some constant $`c=c(L,\eta ,A_0)`$.

Proof. Since $`N<\mathrm{}`$, (c) in Prop. 4 gives

$$\underset{t[R^{}L,R^{}]}{sup}|A(t)A_0|_{C^{k,\mu }}c_2\tau $$
(2.49)
for $`c_2=c_2(A_0,L)>0`$. We first show the following claim.

###### Claim 2

Assume that“ $`A(t)+\beta (t)dt`$ is a connection in the gauge of Prop. 4, then there exists a Yang-Mills connection $`A_1`$ with

$`\underset{t[R^{}2L,R^{}]}{sup}|A(t)A_1|_{C^{k,\mu }}\delta (\epsilon )`$ (2.50)
$`d_{A_0}^{}(A_1A_0)=0`$ (2.51)
where $`\delta `$ is an increasing function with $`lim_{\epsilon 0}\delta (\epsilon )=0`$.

Proof of Claim.  Assume that the claim is not true, then there exists a sequence $`\epsilon _j0`$ and a sequence of Yang-Mills connections $`\stackrel{~}{A}_j=A_j(t)+\beta _j(t)dt`$ on $`I=[R^{}2L,R^{}]`$ in standard form gauge around $`A_0`$ and satisfy conditions in Prop. 4 (b), i.e.

$`|\stackrel{~}{A}_iA_0|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)}\tau ,`$ (2.52)
$`|{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\stackrel{~}{A}_j|_{𝒮^{k1,\mu }(I)}\epsilon _j,`$ (2.53)
and there exists $`\epsilon _0>0`$ such that for any $`j`$ there does not exist a Yang-Mills connection $`A_1`$ such that (2.50) and (2.51) are true with $`\delta (\epsilon )`$ and $`A(t)`$ replaced by $`\epsilon _0`$ and $`A_j(t)`$. By compactness of $`𝒮^{k,\mu }`$ in $`𝒮^k`$, taking a subsequence, we may assume $`\stackrel{~}{A}_j\stackrel{~}{A}^{}=A^{}(t)+\beta ^{}(t)dt`$ in $`𝒮^k(I)`$ and it follows that $`\stackrel{~}{A}^{}`$ is also a Yang-Mills connection in standard form around $`A_0`$ on $`I`$ and

$$|\stackrel{~}{A}^{}|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)}\underset{i\mathrm{}}{lim\; inf}|\stackrel{~}{A}_j|_{𝒮^{k,\mu }(I)}\tau $$

Taking limit as $`j\mathrm{}`$ in (2.53), we have $`\dot{A^{}}(t)0`$, $`\dot{\beta }^{}(t)0`$. Hence, from the Yang-Mills equation(1.19), we have

$$d_A^{}^{}d_A^{}\beta ^{}=0$$

Since $`A^{}`$ is close to $`A_0`$ in $`C^k`$ norm, $`d_A^{}^{}d_A^{}`$ would be invertible on the space $`\text{Ker}(d_{A_0})`$ whileas $`\beta ^{}\text{Ker}(d_{A_0})`$, hence $`\beta ^{}0`$. From the other Yang-Mills equation (1.18), we have $`A^{}`$ is Yang-Mills, hence $`\stackrel{~}{A}^{}`$ is in fact the pullback of a Yang-Mills on $`E`$. Now (1.18) implies that

$$d_{A_j(t)}^{}F_{A_j(t)}=d_1(t)+d_2(t)+d_3(t),$$
(2.54)
where

$`\underset{tI}{sup}|d_1(t)|_{C^{k2,\mu }}=\underset{tI}{sup}|\ddot{A_j}(t)+\dot{A_j}(t)|_{C^{k2,\mu }}2\epsilon _j\text{ by (}\text{2.53}\text{)}`$
$`\underset{tI}{sup}|d_2(t)|_{C^{k2,\mu }}=\underset{tI}{sup}|d_{A_j}\dot{\beta }_j(t)|_{C^{k2,\mu }}C\epsilon _j\text{ by (}\text{2.53}\text{)}`$
$`\underset{tI}{sup}|d_3(t)|_{C^{k2,\mu }}=\underset{tI}{sup}|(n4)d_{A_j}\beta _j(t)+(1)^{n+1}[\beta _j(t),d_{A_j}\beta _j(t)]|_{C^{k2,\mu }}`$
$`C\underset{tI}{sup}|\beta _j(t)|_{C^{k1,\mu }}:=C\delta _j`$
where $`\delta _j=sup_{tI}|\beta _j(t)|_{C^{k1,\mu }}0`$ since $`\stackrel{~}{A}_jA^{}`$ in $`𝒮^k(I)`$. The left hand side of (2.54) is a uniformly elliptic second order linear operator acting on $`A_j(t)A^{}`$ with coefficients bounded in $`C^{k,\mu }(M)`$ uniformly in $`t`$. Hence we can apply elliptic estimates and bootstrapping to get

$$\underset{tI}{sup}|A_j(t)A^{}|_{C^{k,\mu }}C(\epsilon _j+\delta _j+\underset{tI}{sup}|A_j(t)A^{}|_{C^{k1,\mu }})0$$

But this is a contradiction to our assumption at beginning. q.e.d.

Let $`A_1`$ be as in the above claim. Let $`t_0[R^{}L,R^{}]`$ such that $`|A_0A(t_0)|_{C^{k,\mu }}=sup_{t[R^{}L,R^{}]}|A_0A(t)|_{C^{k,\mu }}`$, then by (2.49) and (2.50), we have

$$|A_1A_0|_{C^{k,\mu }}|A_0A(t_0)|_{C^{k,\mu }}|A(t_0)A_1|_{C^{k,\mu }}c_2\tau \delta (\epsilon )\frac{1}{2}c_2\tau $$
(2.55)
if $`\delta (\epsilon )\frac{1}{2}c_2\tau `$. Now we have for any $`t[R^{}2L,R^{}]`$,

$$|A(t)A_0|_{C^{k,\mu }}|A_1A_0|_{C^{k,\mu }}|A_1A(t)|_{C^{k,\mu }}\frac{1}{2}c_2\tau \delta (\epsilon )\frac{1}{4}c_2\tau $$

if $`\delta (\epsilon )\frac{1}{4}c_2\tau `$. By a priori elliptic estimates for Yang-Mills connections in standard form (2.25), we have

$`\underset{t[R^{}2L,R^{}L]}{sup}`$ $`A(t)A_0C^1|A(R^{}{\displaystyle \frac{3L}{2}})A_0|_{C^{k,\mu }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}C^1c_2\tau =c_3\tau `$
$`\underset{t[R^{}L,R^{}]}{sup}`$ $`A(t)A_0C^1|A(R^{}{\displaystyle \frac{L}{2}})A_0|_{C^{k,\mu }}c_3\tau `$
$`\underset{t[R^{}L,R^{}]}{sup}`$ $`A(t)A_0\underset{t[R^{}2L,R^{}L]}{sup}A(t)A_0`$
$`+2CL|{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}`$ $`A(t)|_{C^0([R^{}2L,R^{}])}(1+\eta )\underset{t[R^{}2L,R^{}L]}{sup}A(t)A_0`$
if $`4CL\epsilon \eta c_3\tau `$. This implies that if $`0<\epsilon <<\tau <<1`$ depending on $`A_0`$, $`L`$ and $`\eta `$, then (2.47) and (2.48) hold. q.e.d.

## 3 An asymptotic convergence result for a class of evolution equations

By fixing the gauge as in the last section, we can reduce the main theorem into an asymptotics problem for a certain nonlinear elliptic evolution equation quite similar to the case treated in \[15, Theorem 1\]. The difference from the case there is that we only have estimates and growth control (as given by (2.34), (2.47) and (2.48)) near the end of our existence interval $`[R,R^{}]`$, not on the whole interval. However, to the up side, we have the bound

$$|\frac{^l}{t}A(t)|_{C^{k1,\mu }(I)}\epsilon $$

which allows us to compare norms of connections at different points on the time interval. We prove a general asymptotic convergence theorem relevant to our case and complete the proof of Theorem 1 and Theorem 2 in this section.

### 3.1 A type of nonlinear evolution equations

Let $`E`$ be a vector bundle on Riemannian manifold $`M`$ and let $``$ be a functional of ‘energy type’ defined for sections $`aC^1(M,E)`$ by

$$(a)=_MF(x,a,a)$$
(3.1)
where $`F=F(x,z,p)`$ for $`xM,zE`$, $`pT_xME_x`$ depend smoothly on $`(x,z,p)`$ and $`F`$ is uniformly convex in the $`p`$ variable for $`pT_xME_x`$ and $`|z|`$, $`|p|`$ small. We also require that $`F`$ has analytic dependence on $`(z,p)E\times T_xME_x`$ with uniform bounds on $`F`$ and its derivatives in $`z`$, $`p`$ for sufficiently small $`|z|`$, $`|p|`$ . By this we mean that there exists $`c_0>0`$ such that

$`F(x,z`$ $`+{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}\lambda _{1,i}w_i,p+{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}\lambda _{2,j}q_j)`$
$`={\displaystyle \underset{|\alpha |0}{}}F_\alpha (x,z,w_1,\mathrm{},w_m,p,q_1,\mathrm{},q_m^{})\lambda ^\alpha ,`$
where $`0im`$, $`0jm^{}`$, $`m`$ and $`m^{}`$ being the dimension of fibers of bundle $`E`$ and $`TME`$. $`|z|,|w|,|p_i|,|q_j|c_0`$, $`z,wE_x`$, $`p_i,q_jT_xME_x`$, $`\lambda =(\lambda _{1,1},\mathrm{},\lambda _{1,m},\lambda _{2,1},\mathrm{},\lambda _{2,m^{}})^{m+m^{}}`$, $`|\lambda |1`$. The above expansion and its derivatives (in terms of $`z`$ and $`p`$ only) should converge absolutely in the above domain of variables and there are uniform bounds

$$\underset{|\alpha |+|\beta |=j,|z|,|p|c_0}{sup}|D_z^\alpha D_p^\beta F(x,z,p)|c(j).$$
(3.2)
The Euler-Lagrange operator for $`(a)`$, denoted by $`(a)`$, is uniquely characterized by

$$((a),b)_{L^2(M)}=\frac{d}{ds}(a+sb)|_{s=0}.$$
(3.3)
In other words, $`(a)=\text{grad}(a)`$). For simplicity, we also require that

$$(0)=0,$$

i.e. $`0`$ is a critical point of $``$. By uniform convexity, we have that $`(a)`$ is a second order quasi-linear operator which is uniformly elliptic for $`|a|_{C^1(M)}`$ sufficiently small. Thus the linearization (the Jacobi operator at $`0`$)

$$La:=\frac{d}{ds}(su)|_{s=0}.$$
(3.4)
is a second order elliptic self-adjoint linear operator.

We shall fix $`k2`$ and $`\mu >0`$ in this section for the consideration of $`C^{k,\mu }`$ norms. Assume that $`a(t)C^{k,\mu }(M\times I,E\times I)`$ is a section of $`E\times I`$. Fix $`\gamma >0`$ a constant and denote $`\frac{a(t)}{t}`$ by $`\dot{a}(t)`$. We consider the following equation

$$\ddot{a}(t)\gamma \dot{a}(t)+N(a(t))+G_1(\dot{a}(t))+G_2(\ddot{a}(t))=0.$$
(3.5)
In the equation we require that $`N(a)`$ is a second-order quasi-linear differential operator with smooth coefficients and $`N(a)`$ is uniformly elliptic if $`|a|_{C^1(M)}`$ is sufficiently small and $`N`$ approximates $``$ well in the following sense,

$$(a)N(a)\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{min}\{N(a),(a)\},$$
(3.6)
for any $`aC^{k,\mu }(M)`$ with $`|a|_{C^{k,\mu }}\sigma `$, where $`\sigma =\sigma ()`$ is a constant. Let $`G_0(a):=N(a)L(a)`$ ($`L`$ as in (3.4) ). We require in addition that

$$G_i:C^{l,\mu }(M\times I)C^{l,\mu }(M\times I)\text{for }0i2,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}lk2$$
(3.7)
are continuously differentiable linear maps and the derivatives

$$D^\beta G_i:C^{l,\mu }(M\times I)C^{l,\mu }(M\times I),0|\beta |k2,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}lk|\beta |2$$
(3.8)
are continuous linear maps for $`0|\beta |k2,0lk|\beta |2`$ with the following uniform bounds on the operator norms:

$$D^\beta G_i(a)_{op}C|a|_{C^{k,\mu }},aC^{k,\mu }(M).$$
(3.9)
In fact, what we have in mind is that $`G_i`$’s are some pseudo-differential operators which may have nonsmooth symbols.

If $`a=a(t)C^{k,\mu }(M\times [t_1,t_2])`$ is a solution of (3.5) with $`|a|_{C^{k,\mu }(I)}C`$, then it follows from the standard Schauder theory and Sobolev theory (for example, in  and ), that for $`\sigma (0,\frac{1}{2}(t_2t_1))`$ and $`0lk2`$,

$`|a|_{C^{l,\mu }([t_1+\sigma ,t_2\sigma ])}c_l\sigma ^{(l+\mu )}a_{[t_1,t_2]}.`$ (3.10)
Example. If $`\stackrel{~}{A}=A(t)+\beta (t)dt=A_0+a(t)+\beta (t)dt`$ is a Yang-Mills connection in the standard form around a Yang-Mills connection $`A_0`$. We claim that $`a(t)`$ satisfies an equation of the form (3.5).

Let $`(a)=\text{YM}(A_0+a)`$ in this case. We note that $`(a)`$ is uniformly convex if we restrict $`a(t)\text{Ker}(d_{A_0}^{})`$ throughout. $`(a)`$ is an analytic functional because the space of connections is affine. We note that in contrast, the energy for harmonic maps, which is analytic only when the metric on the target is analytic. In the Yang-Mills case here, the linear fibers of the bundle may be thought as the ‘target’ space, which have standard, hence analytic metrics. By (1.18) and (1.19) and the fact $`\beta =G_A([a,\dot{a}])`$ ($`G_A=(\mathrm{\Delta }_A)^1`$, see the proof of Lemma 9), $`a(x,t)`$ satisfies an equation of the form of (3.5), where

$`\gamma =(n4)`$
$`N(a)=(d_{A_0+a}^{}F_{A_0+a}+d_{A_0}d_{A_0}^{}a)`$
$`L(a)=(d_{A_0}d_{A_0}^{}a+d_{A_0}^{}d_{A_0}a+(1)^n[a,F_{A_0}])`$
$`G_0(a)=N(a)L(a)=(1)^n[a,(d_{A_0}a+aa)]+d_{A_0}^{}(aa)`$
$`G_1(\dot{a})=d_AG_A([\dot{a},\dot{a}])(n4)d_AG_A([a,\dot{a}])`$
$`+(1)^{n+1}[G_A([a,\dot{a}]),d_AG_A([a,\dot{a}])]`$
$`G_2(\ddot{a})=d_AG_A([a,\ddot{a}])`$
We regard only one $`\dot{a}`$ in each term of $`G_1`$ as the variable, others (dependent on $`a`$ and $`\dot{a}`$) will be seen as parts of coefficients of $`G_1`$. Similarly, we only regard the $`\ddot{a}`$ in $`G_2`$ as the variable. By the smoothing properties of the Green’s operator $`G_A`$, and (3.30), it is easy to see that the operators $`N,G_i`$ satisfy the stated properties if $`|a|_{C^{k,\mu }(I)}^{}\tau `$ and hence the additional requirement following (3.5) are satisfied .

Assume that $`\epsilon `$, $`\tau `$, $`\eta `$, $`L`$ are positive constants, $`\epsilon \tau `$, $`a=a(x,t)C^{k,\mu }(M\times [R,R^{}])`$, where $`R^{}R3L`$ and possibly $`R^{}=\mathrm{}`$.

Definition.  We call $`a=a(x,t)`$ $`(\epsilon ,\tau ,\eta ,L)`$-bounded on $`[R,R^{}]`$ if there exists $`0<c=c(\eta ,L)<1`$ such that

$`|a|_{C^{k,\mu }([R,R^{}])}\tau `$ (3.11)
$`|{\displaystyle \frac{a}{t}}|_{C^{k1,\mu }([R,R^{}])}\epsilon `$ (3.12)
$`|a|_{C^{k,\mu }([R,R+2L])}\epsilon `$ (3.13)
and additionally, if $`R^{}<\mathrm{}`$ then $`a`$ satisfies,

$$\underset{[R^{}L,R^{}]}{sup}a(t)c\tau .$$
(3.14)
This definition, of course, is motivated by our estimates on connections in Section 2.3 and Section 2.4. We state our result about solutions to (3.5) as follows.

###### Theorem 3

Fix $`k5`$ and $`\mu >0`$. Given $`L>0`$, there exists $`\eta (0,1)`$ such that if $`0<\epsilon <<\tau <<1`$ depending on $`E`$, $`L`$ and $`\eta `$, $`a(t)`$ is an $`(\epsilon ,\tau ,\eta ,L)`$-bounded solution to (3.5) and

$$(a(t))(0)c\epsilon ,$$
(3.15)
then $`R^{}=\mathrm{}`$, $`|a|_{C^{k,\mu }([R,\mathrm{}))}\tau `$ and there exists a $`C^{2,\mu }`$ critical point $`\omega `$ of $``$ such that

$$\underset{t\mathrm{}}{lim}|a(t)w|_{C^{2,\mu }}=0$$
(3.16)
### 3.2 Growth estimates

Let $``$ be a functional as in the last subsection. Recall that $`L`$ is the linearization of the Euler-Lagrange operator $`=\text{grad}`$. Assume that $`\mu _1\mu _2\mathrm{}`$ and $`\varphi _1,\varphi _2,\mathrm{}`$ are the complete set of eigenvalues and the corresponding orthonormal (in $`L^2`$ norm) eigenfunctions of the operator $`L`$ on $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(E)`$. Let

$$\lambda _i^\pm =\frac{1}{2}(\gamma \pm \sqrt{\gamma ^24\mu _i}).$$
(3.17)
Every solution of the linear evolution equation

$$(a)=\ddot{a}\gamma \dot{a}+L(a)=0,$$
(3.18)
can be written as

$`a(x,t)=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{iI_1}{}}(a_i\mathrm{cos}\alpha _itb_i\mathrm{sin}\alpha _it)e^{\frac{\gamma t}{2}}\varphi _i(x)`$ (3.19)
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{iI_2}{}}(a_i+b_it)e^{\frac{\gamma t}{2}}\varphi _i(x)+{\displaystyle \underset{iI_3}{}}(a_ie^{\lambda _i^+t}+b_ie^{\lambda _i^{}t})\varphi _i(x)`$
for suitable constants $`a_i`$, $`b_i`$, where

$`I_1`$ $`=\{i:\mu _i<{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma }{4}}\},\alpha _i=\text{Im}\lambda _i^+,`$
$`I_2`$ $`=\{i:\mu _i={\displaystyle \frac{\gamma }{4}}\},`$
$`I_3`$ $`=\{i:\mu _i>{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma }{4}}\}.`$
And the $`L^2`$ norm square of $`a(,t)`$ can be written as

$`a(t)^2=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{iI_1}{}}(a_i\mathrm{cos}\alpha _itb_i\mathrm{sin}\alpha _it)^2e^{\gamma t}`$ (3.20)
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{iI_2}{}}(a_i+b_it)^2e^{\gamma t}+{\displaystyle \underset{iI_3}{}}(a_ie^{\lambda _i^+t}+b_ie^{\lambda _i^{}t})^2.`$
We let

$$\delta _1=\mathrm{min}\{s:s\{\text{Re}\lambda _i^\pm \},s>0\},\delta _2=\mathrm{min}\{|s|:s\{\text{Re}\lambda _i^\pm \},s<0\}$$
(3.21)
We have

###### Lemma 10

\[15, Lemma 2\] Assume $`aC^{k,\mu }(M\times [0,3L])`$ satisfy (3.5), where $`G_i`$ satisfies properties above. For any given $`L>0,1>\eta >0,\delta <\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{min}\{\delta _1,\delta _2\}`$, where $`\delta _1,\delta _2`$ as in (3.21), there exists $`\tau _0=\tau _0(L,\eta )>0`$, such that if $`|a|_{C^{k,\mu }([0,3L])}\tau _0`$, then the following are true. By denoting $`S(j)=sup_{t[(j1)L,jL]}a(t)`$, we have

$`\text{(i) }S(2)e^{\delta L/2}S(1)S(3)e^{(\delta _1\delta )L}S(2)`$
$`\text{(ii) }S(2)e^{(\delta _2\delta )L}S(1)S(3)(1\eta )S(2)`$
$`\text{(iii) }S(2)e^{\delta L/2}S(3)S(1)e^{(\delta _2\delta )L}S(2)`$
$`\text{(iv) }S(2)e^{(\delta _1\delta )L}S(3)S(1)(1\eta )S(2)`$
$`\text{(v) If }S(2)\mathrm{max}\{e^{(\delta _1\delta )L}S(3),e^{(\delta _2\delta )L}S(1)\},`$
$`\text{then }S(2)(1+\eta )\underset{t[L,2L]}{inf}a(t),`$
$`\text{and }\dot{a}(t)_{C^1}\eta a(t),t[L,2L].`$
Sketch of proof.  First we can prove that (i)-(v) hold for solutions to the linear equation (3.18) by using the expression of the $`L^2`$ norm of (3.20). Then by a blow-up argument we can prove that for $`\tau _0`$ sufficiently small, the lemma holds for solutions to (3.5). In the proof, we need the regularity properties of solutions to (3.5). q.e.d.

The next proposition is a simpler form of Theorem 4 in .

###### Propostion 6

Assume $`a`$ on $`[R,R+NL]`$ satisfies (3.5) as above. For $`0<\eta <1`$, there exists $`\tau _0>0`$, such that if $`0<|a|_{C^{k,\mu }([R,R+NL])}<\tau _0`$, then there exists integers $`1k_1k_2N1`$ such that the following hold, where $`S(j)=sup_{t[(j1)L,jL]}a(t)`$.
(a) $`S(j)e^{(\delta _2\delta )L}S(j1)`$, for $`1jk_11`$.
(b) $`a(t_1)(1+\eta )a(t_2)`$, for $`t_1,t_2[k_1L,(k_21)L],\text{and }|t_1t_2|L`$
$`\dot{a}(t)\eta a(t)`$, for $`t[k_1L,(k_21)L]`$.
(c) $`S(j)e^{(\delta _1\delta )L}S(j1)`$, for $`k_2+1jN1`$.

Proof. We set

$`k_1=\underset{1jk1}{\mathrm{min}}\{S(j)e^{(\delta _2\delta )L}S(j1)\}`$
$`k_2=\underset{k_1jN1}{\mathrm{min}}\{S(j+1)e^{(\delta _1\delta )L}S(j)\}`$
And it is easy to check the theorem holds by repetitive use of the previous lemma. q.e.d.

This proposition allows us to conceptually divide the existence interval into three parts according to the ‘growth rate’ of the $`L^2`$ norms of $`a`$. In the first part which corresponds to case (a), the $`L^2`$ norm of $`a`$ is decreasing exponentially (in average); in case (b), the $`L^2`$ norm changes slowly in proportion; in case (c), it is growing exponentially.

### 3.3 Variational inequalities for analytical functionals

The inequalities in the following proposition are infinite dimensional generalizations given by Leon Simon  of Łojasiewicz inequalities with regard to critical points of analytic functions. Let $`(a)`$ be an analytic elliptic functional for $`aC^1(M)`$ as in Section 3.1.

###### Propostion 7

\[15, Theorem 3\] There exist constants $`0<\theta <\frac{1}{2}`$, $`2\gamma `$, $`0<\sigma `$ depending only on $``$, such that if $`|a|_{C^{k,\mu }}<\sigma `$, then

$$(a)(\underset{\zeta 𝒮}{inf}a\zeta )^\gamma $$
(3.22)
where $`𝒮=\{\zeta C^{k,\mu }(E):|\zeta |_{C^{k,\mu }(\mathrm{\Sigma })}<c_0,(\zeta )=0\}`$, and

$$(a)|(a)(0)|^{1\theta }$$
(3.23)
Let $`\sigma `$, $`\theta `$ in this section be the same as in Prop. 7. Now assume that $`aC^{k,\mu }(M\times [t_1,t_2])`$ satisfies the following equation

$$\dot{a}=N(a)+R(a)$$
(3.24)
where $`N(a)`$ approximates well the gradient $``$ of $``$ in the sense of (3.6) and

$$R(a)(t)\frac{1}{2}\dot{a}(t),t[t_1,t_2]$$
(3.25)
We have

###### Lemma 11

\[15, Lemma 1\] Suppose $`a`$ satisfies $`|a(t)|_{C^{k,\mu }([t_1,t_2])}\sigma `$, and suppose that for some constant $`\epsilon >0`$,

$$(a(t))>(0)\epsilon \text{for all }t[t_1,t_2]$$
(3.26)
Then

$$_{t_1}^{t_2}\dot{a}(t)𝑑tC\theta ^1(|(a(t_1))(0)|^\theta +\epsilon ^\theta ),$$
(3.27)
In particular

$$\underset{t[t_1,t_2]}{sup}a(t)a(t_1)C\theta ^1(|(a(t_1))(0)|^\theta +\epsilon ^\theta ).$$
(3.28)
The next lemma is a gauge invariant form of the inequality (3.23) for connections and was essentially proven in  .

###### Lemma 12

Let $`E`$ be a vector bundle on $`M`$. $`A`$ is a $`C^{k,\mu }`$ connection on $`E`$ and $`B`$ is a smooth Yang-Mills connection on $`E`$. There exists $`\epsilon _3>0`$ and $`\theta (0,\frac{1}{2})`$, such that if $`|AB|_{C^{k,\mu }}<\epsilon _3`$, then the following inequality holds,

$$\left(_M|F_A|^2|F_B|^2d\sigma \right)^{1\theta }2d_A^{}F_A.$$
(3.29)
Proof. If $`\epsilon _3`$ is sufficiently small, by a gauge transformation to the Coulomb gauge around $`B`$, we may assume that $`A=B+a`$ with $`a\text{Ker}(d_B^{})`$, and $`|a|_{C^{k,\mu }}<C\epsilon _3`$. Let $`U`$ be a small $`C^{k,\mu }`$ neighborhood of $`0`$ in $`\text{Ker}(d_B^{})\mathrm{\Omega }^1(\text{End}E|_M)`$ and consider $`:U`$ by $`(b)=\text{YM}(B+b)`$, $`bU`$. Let $``$ be the Euler-Lagrange operator of $``$ on $`U`$. We claim that if $`U`$ is sufficiently small, $`A=B+a`$, $`aU`$, then

$$d_A^{}F_A(a)\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{min}\{(a),d_A^{}F_A\}.$$
(3.30)
Indeed, since $`(a),b_{L^2}=d_A^{}F_A,b_{L^2}`$, $`b\text{Ker}(d_B^{})`$ and $`(a)\text{Ker}(d_B^{})`$, it follows that $`(a)=p_{\text{Ker}(d_B^{})}(d_A^{}F_A)`$, where $`p`$ is the $`L^2`$ projection. Let $`G_B=d_B^{}d_B^1`$ as in the proof of Lemma 9, we can easily see that

$`(a)=p_{\text{Ker}(d_B^{})}(d_A^{}F_A)`$ $`=d_A^{}F_Ad_BG_Bd_B^{}(d_A^{}F_A)`$ (3.31)
$`=d_A^{}F_Ad_BG_B([a,d_A^{}F_A]),`$
where we used the identity

$$d_A^{}d_A^{}F_A=\{F_A,F_A\}=0.$$
(3.32)
where $`\{,\}`$ is defined by Lie bracket on the bundle parts and Riemannian product on the form part and hence is skew-symmetric. From (3.31) and the smoothing properties of $`G_B`$ it is easy to derive (3.30) if $`|a|_{C^{k,\mu }}`$ is small. Apply (3.23) to $``$ and use (3.30) (note that $``$ is only defined on $`\text{Ker}(d_B^{})`$, not on the space of all sections; however Prop. 7 is still true in this case because $`\text{Ker}(d_B^{})`$ is an analytic submanifold of the Hölder spaces of sections), we obtain that there exists $`\theta (0,\frac{1}{2})`$, such that

$$(a)(0)^{1\theta }2d_A^{}F_A.$$

This last inequality is exactly (3.29) which we want to prove. q.e.d.

### 3.4 Proof of Theorem 3

Our method of proving Theorem 3 follows mostly the methods of proving Theorem 1 in  with modifications to our case. We first apply the growth estimates in Section 3.2 to the time derivative $`\dot{a}(t)`$ of the solution to (3.5) and divide the interval into three parts. We estimate the integration of $`\dot{a}(t)`$ on these three parts respectively and thus obtain a bound on $`a(t)`$, which then gives long-term existence of $`a(t)`$ and convergence. The estimates of $`\dot{a}(t)`$ on the three parts use the estimates from Section 3.3 and the assumptions on the solution in Theorem 3, especially the condition (3.12).

Assume $`R^{}<\mathrm{}`$. We may assume that $`R^{}=R+NL`$ for $`N2`$ by changing $`R`$ within an amount of $`L`$ if necessary. It is important to note that by differentiation of (1.18), we have $`\dot{a}`$ satisfies an equation of (3.5) form on $`[R,R^{}]`$, with the same $`\tau `$ (we need to change $`C^{k,\mu }`$ norms to $`C^{k1,\mu }`$ norms for $`\dot{a}`$; since $`k5`$, this is still in the regular range, an our previous results hold without change). Note that $`\ddot{a}`$ in general doesn’t satisfy an equation in the form of (3.5).

Assume $`\tau <\tau _0`$, where $`\tau _0`$ is as in Prop. 6. Then by applying Prop. 6 to $`\dot{a}(t)`$, we have $`1k_1k_2N1`$ for $`\dot{a}`$ such that the conclusions of Prop. 6 hold. We adopt the notation

$$S(j,\dot{a})=\underset{t[R+(j1)L,R+jL]}{sup}\dot{a}(t)$$
(3.33)
We shall assume in the rest of our proof that $`\tau \epsilon ^\alpha `$ for the constant $`\alpha =\frac{\theta }{8}`$, where $`\theta `$ is the constant in Lemma 11. We have the following claim,

###### Claim 3

There exists a constant C depending on the functional $``$ such that

$$a(t)C\epsilon ^{2\alpha },t[R,R+NL].$$
(3.34)
Proof of Claim.  First we consider the claim for $`t[R,R+(k_11)L]`$, by using Prop. 6 (a), we have

$$\dot{a}(t)S([(tR)/L]+1,\dot{a})e^{(\delta _2\delta )(tL)}S(1,\dot{a})e^{\delta (tL)}\epsilon $$
(3.35)
Hence for $`t[R,R+(k_11)L]`$,

$$a(t)a(R)+_0^t\dot{a}𝑑t\epsilon +\delta ^1e^{\delta L}\epsilon \epsilon ^{\frac{1}{2}},$$
(3.36)
if $`\epsilon ^{\frac{1}{2}}(1+\delta ^1e^{\delta L})^1`$.

Next we consider the case $`t[R+(k_11)L,R+(k_2+1)L]`$. By using the fact that $`|a(t)|_{C^{k,\mu }}\tau `$ and $`\ddot{a}(t)1/8\dot{a}(t)`$, which follows from (b) in Prop. 6 if we take $`\eta =1/8`$ there, we see that Lemma 11 applies to $`\dot{a}`$ on $`[R+k_1L,R+(k_21)L]`$ as long as $`\epsilon `$ and $`\tau `$ are sufficiently small. Therefore

$`{\displaystyle _{R+k_1L}^{R+(k_21)L}}\dot{a}𝑑t`$ $`C(|(a(R+k_1L))(0)|^\theta +\epsilon ^{\frac{\theta }{2}})`$ (3.37)
$`C(|a(R+k_1L)|_{C^1}^\theta +\epsilon ^{\frac{\theta }{2}})\text{ by (}\text{3.1}\text{)}`$
$`C(\underset{t[R+k_1L1,R+k_1L+1]}{sup}a(t)^\theta +\epsilon ^{\frac{\theta }{2}})\text{ by (}\text{3.10}\text{)}`$
$`C\epsilon ^{\frac{\theta }{2}}C\epsilon ^{2\alpha }\text{ by (}\text{3.36}\text{)}`$
and hence for $`\tau [R+(k_11)L,R+(k_2+1)L]`$, by (3.12) $`\dot{a}C\epsilon `$ and we have

$`a(t)`$ $`a(R+k_1L)+C\epsilon ^{2\alpha }+C\epsilon `$ (3.38)
$`a(R+(k_11)L)+C\epsilon +C\epsilon ^{2\alpha }`$
$`C\epsilon ^{\frac{1}{2}}+C\epsilon +C\epsilon ^{2\alpha }C\epsilon ^{2\alpha }.`$
Finally, we consider the case $`t[R+(k_2+1)L,R+NL]`$. It follows from Prop. 6 (c) that

$$S(j,\dot{a})e^{(\delta _1\delta )L}S(j1,\dot{a}),k_2+1jN1.$$

We also know from (3.12) that $`S(N1,\dot{A})C\epsilon `$. Hence for any $`t(R+(j1)L,R+jL]`$, where $`k_2+1jN1`$, we have

$$\dot{a}(t)S(j,\dot{a})e^{(\delta _1\delta )(N1j)L}S(N1,\dot{a})Ce^{(\delta _1\delta )(R+(N2)Lt)}\epsilon .$$

It follows that

$$_{R+(k_2+1)L}^{R+(N1)L}\dot{a}(t)_{R+(k_2+1)L}^{R+(N1)L}Ce^{(\delta _1\delta )(R+(N2)Lt)}\epsilon C\epsilon .$$
(3.39)
Hence for any $`t[R+(k_2+1)L,R+NL]`$, we have

$$a(t)a(R+(k_2+1)L)+C\epsilon C\epsilon ^{2\alpha }$$
(3.40)
q.e.d.

Now (3.34) implies in particular that

$$\underset{t[R+(N1)L,R+NL]}{sup}a(t)C\epsilon ^{2\alpha }$$
(3.41)
which gives a contradiction to our assumption (LABEL:eq:3.1.20) if $`\epsilon `$ is sufficiently small relative to $`\tau `$. Therefore we must have $`R^{}=\mathrm{}`$. Hence by (3.11) , $`|a|_{C^{2,\mu }([R,\mathrm{}))}\tau `$ and by (3.12), $`\dot{a}(t)\epsilon `$ for $`t[R,\mathrm{})`$. It follows that $`k_2=\mathrm{}`$, otherwise Prop. 6 (c) implies $`\dot{a}(t)`$ is going to infinity for a sequence of $`t`$. Now (3.36) and (3.37) imply that

$$_R^{\mathrm{}}\dot{a}(t)<\mathrm{}.$$

Hence there exits $`wL^2`$ such that $`a(t)w`$ in $`L^2`$ as $`t\mathrm{}`$. Uniform bounds on $`|a(t)|_{C^{3,\mu }}`$ implies that for a sequence $`t_i\mathrm{}`$, $`a(t_i)w`$ in $`C^{2,\mu }`$. In fact, compactness implies that $`a(t)w`$ in $`C^{2,\mu }`$ as $`t\mathrm{}`$. Hence $`wC^{2,\mu }`$ and taking the limit of (3.5) as $`t_i\mathrm{}`$, we see that $`w`$ is a critical point of $``$. This finishes the proof of Theorem 3.

### 3.5 Proofs of Theorem 1 and Theorem 2

In this section we apply Theorem 3 to prove the convergence of the connection to its tangent connection, hence the uniqueness of tangent connections in Theorem 1. We shall use the monotonicity formula and Lemma 12 of Yang-Mills connections to show the desired rate of convergence in Theorem 1. The idea of using monotonicity formula and Lemma 12 comes from Leon Simon’s work \[16, 3.10 - 3.15\], where energy minimizing harmonic maps with a tangent map which has an isolated singularity is treated.

As before, assume that in the cylindrical coordinates, $`\stackrel{~}{A}=A(t)+\beta (t)dt=A_0+a(t)+\beta (t)dt`$, $`t[R,R^{}]`$ is a connection on $`S^{n1}\times [R,R^{}]`$, is in the standard form gauge given in Prop. 4, then the conclusions of Prop. 4 and Prop. 5 imply that $`a(t)`$ is a $`(\epsilon ,\tau ,\eta ,L)`$-bounded solution of an equation in the form of (3.5) on the interval $`[R,R^{}]`$. The only condition in Theorem 3 left is the energy lower bound (3.15). This can be achieved by choosing the tangent connection $`A_0`$ suitably at the beginning. We note that the set of energies of tangent connections of $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ is bounded from below. We choose $`A_0`$ with energy very close to the infimum, then it is easy to see (3.15) must be satisfied. Hence Theorem 3 applies to give the long-time existence of the standard form gauge and the convergence of the connections $`A(t)`$ to a tangent connection $`A_0^{}`$ as $`t\mathrm{}`$. It is easy to see that any other tangent connection must be gauge equivalent to this $`A_0^{}`$.

Next we proceed to show the rate of convergence for $`A(t)+\beta (t)dtA_0`$ as $`t\mathrm{}`$. Without loss of generality, we may assume $`R=0`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{A}_1=\varphi ^{}(\stackrel{~}{A})`$ is the original connection on $`B_1(0)\{0\}`$. Since $`\stackrel{~}{A}_1`$ is stationary, by monotonicity formula,

$`4{\displaystyle _{B_\rho (0)}}r^{4n}|{\displaystyle \frac{}{r}}F_{\stackrel{~}{A}_1}|^2dx`$ (3.42)
$``$ $`\underset{\sigma 0}{lim}\{{\displaystyle _{B_\rho (0)}}\rho ^{4n}|F_{\stackrel{~}{A}_1}|^2𝑑x{\displaystyle _{B_\sigma (0)}}\sigma ^{4n}|F_{\stackrel{~}{A}_1}|^2𝑑x\}`$
$`=`$ $`\underset{\lambda _i0}{lim}\{{\displaystyle _{B_\rho (0)}}\rho ^{4n}|F_{\stackrel{~}{A}_1}|^2𝑑x{\displaystyle _{B_{\lambda _i}(0)}}\lambda _i^{4n}|F_{\stackrel{~}{A}_1}|^2𝑑x\}`$
$`=`$ $`\underset{\lambda _i0}{lim}\{{\displaystyle _{B_\rho (0)}}\rho ^{4n}|F_{\stackrel{~}{A}_1}|^2𝑑x{\displaystyle _{B_1(0)}}|F_{\stackrel{~}{A}_{1_{\lambda _i}}}|^2𝑑x\}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{B_\rho (0)}}\rho ^{4n}(|F_{\stackrel{~}{A}_1}|^2|F_{A_0}|^2)𝑑x`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n4}}{\displaystyle _{B_\rho (0)}}\rho ^{5n}(|F_{\stackrel{~}{A}_1}|^2|F_{A_0}|^2)𝑑\sigma `$
where the last inequality follows from monotonicity formula (1.10) and the fact that $`\frac{}{r}F_{A_0}=0`$. We note that there is no loss of curvature energy (on bounded sets) by Prop. 2. Under our cylindrical coordinates, let $`\eta (t)=\dot{a}(t)d_A\beta (t)dt`$ and $`T=\mathrm{log}(\rho )R`$, by change of variables, (3.42) becomes, for any $`T[R,R^{}]`$,

$`{\displaystyle _T^{\mathrm{}}}\eta (t)^2𝑑t`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n4}}{\displaystyle _{S^{n1}}}|F_A(T)\eta (T)dt|^2|F_{A_0}|^2d\sigma `$ (3.43)
$`=C{\displaystyle _{S^{n1}}}|F_A(T)|^2|F_{A_0}|^2d\sigma +C\eta (T)^2`$
Since $`|A(t)A_0|_{C^{k,\mu }}=|a(t)|_{C^{k,\mu }}\tau `$, we can apply Lemma 12 to the right hand side of (3.43) and obtain

$$_T^{\mathrm{}}\eta (t)^2𝑑tCd_{A(T)}^{}F_{A(T)}^{\frac{1}{1\theta }}+C\eta (T)^2,$$
(3.44)
From (1.18), we have

$$d_{A(t)}^{}F_{A(t)}\ddot{a}(t)+\dot{a}(t)+d_A\dot{\beta }(t)+d_A\beta (t)+C\tau \beta (t)$$
(3.45)
(2.25) implies that

$$|\beta (t)|_{C^{k,\mu }}+|\dot{\beta }(t)|_{C^{k,\mu }}C\tau |\dot{a}|_{C^{k,\mu }}.$$
(3.46)
(3.8) The elliptic estimates (3.10) implies that

$$|\ddot{a}(t)|_{C^{k,\mu }}+|\dot{a}(t)|_{C^{k,\mu }}C\dot{a}_{[t1,t+1]}$$
(3.47)
Applying (3.46) and (3.47) to the right hand side of (3.45) gives us

$$d_{A(t)}^{}F_{A(t)}\ddot{a}(t)+\dot{a}(t)+C\tau |\dot{a}(t)|_{C^{k,\mu }}C\dot{a}_{[t1,t+1]}$$
(3.48)
We have also from elliptic estimates for Sobolev norms applied to the equation $`d^{}Ad_A\beta =[a,\dot{a}]`$, that

$$d_A\beta (t)C\tau \dot{a}(t)$$
(3.49)
If $`\tau `$ is small, (3.49) implies

$$\frac{1}{2}\dot{a}(t)\eta (t)2\dot{a}(t)$$
(3.50)
Putting together (3.47), (3.48) and (3.50) and plugging in both sides (3.44), we have

$$_T^{\mathrm{}}\dot{a}^2𝑑sC(_{T1}^{T+1}\dot{a}^2)^{\frac{1}{2(1\theta )}}+C_{T1}^{T+1}\dot{a}^2C(_{T1}^{T+1}\dot{a}^2)^{\frac{1}{2(1\theta )}}$$
(3.51)
where $`\theta (0,\frac{1}{2})`$ depend only on $`A_0`$. (3.51) gives an integral decay estimate for $`\dot{a}`$. Recall that $`|a(t)|_{C^{k,\mu }}\tau `$, for $`R<t<\mathrm{}`$. Now it is an easy analytical exercise to show (for example, as in \[16, 3.15\] ) that there exists $`T_1>0`$, $`\alpha >0`$, such that

$$_t^{\mathrm{}}\dot{a}(s)𝑑s<Ct^\alpha ,\text{for }tT_1$$
(3.52)
Therefore

$$A(t)A_0Ct^\alpha ,\text{for }tT_1$$
(3.53)
and by elliptic estimates,

$$|\stackrel{~}{A}(t)A_0|_{C^{k,\mu }}C(k)t^\alpha ,\text{for }tT_1.$$
(3.54)
The desired rate of convergence is obtained and the proof of Theorem 1 is finished.

With the convergence from Theorem 1 and the integrablity assumption, the fast convergence of Theorem 2 is a well-known result (see for example the proof of Theorem 1 (i) in ). We remark here that a proof of Theorem 2 without using the variational inequalities in Section 3.3 is possible. In fact, the variational approach may be totally avoided in this case as in Cheeger and Tian , where integrablity of the cone is assumed.

## 4 A result of existence and convergence for Yang-Mills flows

In this section we give an application of the previous methods to Yang-Mills flows. We shall show that a flow which starts from a connection sufficiently close (in smooth norms) to a smooth local minimizer of the Yang-Mills functional will converge asymptotically to a smooth Yang-Mills connection near the minimizer. Our method, like before, still consists of two steps, first we choose a suitable gauge, and then we use the result for parabolic evolution equations (Theorem 2) in  .

Consider the the following Yang-Mills flow equation for connections on bundle $`E`$ on Riemannian manifolds $`M`$

$$\frac{}{t}A(t)=d_{A(t)}^{}F_{A(t)}$$
(4.1)
Idealistically, if (4.1) has a solution $`A(t)`$ on $`[0,\mathrm{})`$, the limit of $`A(t)`$ at $`\mathrm{}`$ should be a Yang-Mills connection. Then this will give us a way to homotopically deform an arbitrary connection into a Yang-Mills connection and hopefully we can have a Morse theory suitably defined. However, the long-range existence of solutions of (4.1) as well as the existence and regularity of the limit in general are not at all obvious. Nonetheless, near a local minimizer of the Yang-Mills connection, we are able to show the flow does exist for all time and converges.

We first note that (4.1) is not parabolic due to the fact that $`d_A^{}F_A`$ is not elliptic in $`A`$. As before, we hope to use the Coulomb gauge to make the equation parabolic. We note that (4.1) actually implies

$$d_A^{}(\dot{A})=0,$$
(4.2)
where $`\dot{A}=\frac{}{t}A(t)`$. This follows from $`d_A^{}d_A^{}F_A=0`$ by (3.32).

Assume $`A_0`$ is a fixed smooth Yang-Mills connection, we have the following theorem now. Fix $`l`$ integer such that $`H^l(S^{n1})C^{3,\mu }(S^{n1})`$.

###### Theorem 4

There exists $`\epsilon =\epsilon (A_0)>0`$, $`\alpha =\alpha (A_0)>0`$ such that for any given smooth $`a_0\mathrm{\Omega }^1(𝔤_E)`$ with $`a_0_{H^{l+2}}<\epsilon `$, there is a $`T_{}>0`$ and $`A(t)`$, a $`C^{\mathrm{}}(M\times [0,T^{}))`$ solution of (4.1) satisfying $`A(0)=A_0+a_0`$, $`sup_{[0,T_{})}A(t)A_0_{H^l}<\epsilon ^\alpha `$ and either

$$T_{}<\mathrm{}\text{ and }\underset{tT_{}}{lim}\text{YM}(A(t))\text{YM}(A_0)\epsilon $$
(4.3)
or

$$T_{}=\mathrm{}\text{ and }\underset{t\mathrm{}}{lim}(|\dot{A}(t)|_{C^1}+|A(t)A_1|_{C^2})=0$$
(4.4)
where $`A_1`$ is a smooth Yang-Mills connection on $`M`$.

Assume $`I`$ is an interval of possibly infinite length and $`A(t)+\beta (t)dt`$ is a smooth connection on $`E\times I`$, where $`A(t)`$ are connections on $`E`$ and $`\beta (t)\mathrm{\Gamma }(𝔤_E)`$. We also assume that under a gauge transformation $`g\mathrm{\Gamma }(\text{Aut}P\times I)`$,

$$g(A(t)+\beta (t)dt)=A_1(t)$$
(4.5)
where $`A_1(t)`$ are connections on $`E`$ and satisfies (4.1) and hence (4.2) for $`tI`$. From (4.5), we obtain,

$`A_1=gAg^1dgg^1`$ (4.6)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g=g\beta `$ (4.7)
We observe that (4.6) implies that $`A_1`$ and $`A`$ are gauge equivalent connections on $`M`$. Substitute (4.6) and (4.7) into (4.1) and (4.2), by straightforward computation, we obtain the following equations for $`A`$ and $`\beta `$

$`\dot{A}=d_A^{}F_A+d_A\beta `$ (4.8)
$`d_A^{}(\dot{A}d_A\beta )=0`$ (4.9)
We shall view (4.8) and (4.9) (which is implied by (4.8)) as equations for the connection $`A+\beta dt`$ on $`M\times I`$. It is easy to see that they are gauge invariant equations for gauge transformations on bundle $`E\times I`$, i.e., if $`g\mathrm{\Gamma }(\text{Aut}P\times I)`$, $`g(A+\beta dt)=A_1+\beta _1dt`$ then $`A_1+\beta _1dt`$ also satisfies (4.8) and (4.9). This point of view enables us to consider as before a standard form of $`A+\beta dt`$ around a connection $`A_0`$ on $`E`$ and make the system (4.8) parabolic in $`A`$ and (4.9) elliptic in $`\beta `$. If $`A+\beta dt=A_0+a(t)+\beta (t)dt`$ is under such a standard form, i.e. $`d_{A_0}^{}a=0`$ and $`\beta \text{Ker}(d_{A_0})^{}`$, then we may solve $`\beta `$ from (4.9) and by substituting in (4.8), rewrite (4.8) as

$$\dot{a}=d_{A_0+a}^{}F_{A_0+a}d_{A_0}d_{A_0}^{}a+d_AG_A([a,\dot{a}])$$
(4.10)
where $`G_A=(\mathrm{\Delta }_A)^1:\text{Im}(d_A^{})\text{Ker}(d_{A_0})^{}`$.

From above, we observe that instead of proving Theorem 4 in terms of (4.1), it suffices to prove the same conclusions hold for $`A(t)=A_0+a(t)`$, $`a(t)\text{Ker}(d_{A_0}^{})`$ with $`a(t)`$ being solution to (4.10) with initial value $`a_0`$ (up to a gauge transformation, we may assume $`d_{A_0}^{}a_0=0`$). For if we prove the latter, a solution to (4.1) may be obtained by

$$\overline{A}(t)=g(A(t)+\beta (t)),\frac{}{t}g=g\beta $$

where $`\beta =G_A([a,\dot{a}])`$. We can show that $`g(t)g_0`$ for some $`g_0`$ and $`\dot{g}0`$ in $`C^k`$ as $`t\mathrm{}`$, therefore $`\overline{A}(t)`$ will have limit at infinity $`g_0(A_1)`$ if $`A_1`$ is the limit of $`A(t)`$ and the same conclusions hold for $`\overline{A}`$.

After this observation, notice that (4.10) is essentially in the form of equation (0.1) in  and the proof there applies with slight adjustment. We remark that the variation inequalities in Section 3.3 are again used. Since there is no difficulty, we shall omit the details here. We have the following obvious corollary from Theorem 4 .

###### Corollary 1

If $`A_0`$ is a smooth local minimizer of Yang-Mills functional on $`E`$. Then there exists $`\epsilon =\epsilon (A_0)>0`$ and $`\alpha =\alpha (A_0)>0`$ such that for any given smooth $`a_0\mathrm{\Omega }^1(𝔤_E)`$ with with $`a_0_{H^{l+2}}<\epsilon `$, there is a $`A(t)`$, a $`C^{\mathrm{}}(M\times [0,\mathrm{}))`$ solution of (4.1) satisfying $`A(0)=A_0+a_0`$, and

$$\underset{t\mathrm{}}{lim}(|\dot{A}(t)|_{C^1}+|A(t)A_1|_{C^2})=0$$
(4.11)
where $`A_1`$ is a smooth Yang-Mills connection on $`M`$ with $`|A_1|_{H^l}\epsilon ^\alpha `$.

Baozhong Yang
Department of Mathematics
Stanford University, CA 94305
Email: byang@math.stanford.edu