On the Uniqueness of Heat Flow of Harmonic Maps and Hydrodynamic Flow of Nematic Liquid Crystals

For any n-dimensional compact Riemannian manifold (M,g) without boundary and another compact Riemannian manifold (N,h), the authors establish the uniqueness of the heat flow of harmonic maps from M to N in the class C([0,T),W1,n). For the hydrodynamic flow (u,d) of nematic liquid crystals in dimensions n = 2 or 3, it is shown that the uniqueness holds for the class of weak solutions provided either (i) for n = 2, u ∈ Lt∞ L2x∩L2tHx1, ▽P∈ Lt4/3 Lx4/3 , and ▽d∈ L∞t Lx2∩Lt2Hx2; or (ii) for n = 3, u ∈ Lt∞ Lx2∩L2tHx1∩ C([0,T),Ln), P ∈ Ltn/2 Lxn/2 , and ▽d∈ L2tLx2 ∩ C([0,T),Ln). This answers affirmatively the uniqueness question posed by Lin-Lin-Wang. The proofs are very elementary.