Regularity of four dimensional Willmore-type hypersurfaces

TL;DR

This paper studies a four-dimensional conformally invariant energy extending the Willmore energy, analyzing its critical points, conservation laws, and regularity, and explores other generalizations with different properties.

Contribution

It introduces a new four-dimensional Willmore-type energy, computes its variations, derives conservation laws, and investigates the nature of its critical points compared to minimal hypersurfaces.

Findings

Critical points are smooth.

Conservation laws are derived from invariances.

Minimal hypersurfaces are not critical points of other generalizations.

Abstract

A four dimensional conformally invariant energy is studied. This energy generalises the well known two-dimensional Willmore energy. Although not positive definite, it includes minimal hypersurfaces as critical points. We compute its first variation and by applying the Noether theorem to the invariances, we derive some conservation laws which are satisfied by its critical points and with good analytical dispositions. In particular, we show that its critical points are smooth. We also investigate other possible four dimensional generalisations of the Willmore energy, and give strong evidence that critical points of such energies do not include minimal hypersurfaces.