IUMJ

Title: On the second inner variation of the Allen-Cahn functional and its applications

Authors: Nam Q. Le

Issue: Volume 60 (2011), Issue 6, 1843-1856

Abstract:

In this paper, we study the relation between the second inner variations of the Allen-Cahn functional and its Gamma-limit, the area functional. Our result implies that the Allen-Cahn functional only approximates well the area functional up to the first order. However, as an application of our result, we prove, assuming the single-multiplicity property of the limiting energy, that the Morse indices of critical points of the Allen-Cahn functional are bounded from below by the Morse index of the limiting minimal hypersurface.