Gradient map of isoparametric polynomial and its application to Ginzburg–Landau system

In this note, we study properties of the gradient map of the isoparametric polynomial. For a given isoparametric hypersurface in sphere, we calculate explicitly the gradient map of its isoparametric polynomial which turns out many interesting phenomenons and applications. We find that it should map not only the focal submanifolds to focal submanifolds, isoparametric hypersurfaces to isoparametric hypersurfaces, but also map isoparametric hypersurfaces to focal submanifolds. In particular, it turns out to be a homogeneous polynomial automorphism on certain isoparametric hypersurface. As an immediate consequence, we get the Brouwer degree of the gradient map which was firstly obtained by Peng and Tang with moving frame method. Following Farina’s construction, another immediate consequence is a counterexample of the Brézis question about the symmetry for the Ginzburg–Landau system in dimension 6, which gives a partial answer toward the Open problem2 raised by Farina. © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.