Variational aspects of the generalized Seiberg–Witten functional

Abstract

In this paper, as a step towards a unified mathematical treatment of the gauge functionals from quantum field theory that have found profound applications in mathematics, we generalize the Seiberg–Witten functional that in particular includes the Kapustin–Witten functional as a special case. We first demonstrate the smoothness of weak solutions to this generalized functional. We then establish the existence of weak solutions under the assumption that the structure group of the bundle is abelian, by verifying the Palais–Smale compactness.