A general existence result for the Toda system on compact surfaces

In this paper we consider the following Toda system of equations on a compact surface:{−Δu1=2ρ1(h1eu1∫Σh1eu1dVg−1)−ρ2(h2eu2∫Σh2eu2dVg−1)−Δu1=−4π∑j=1mα1,j(δpj−1),−Δu2=2ρ2(h2eu2∫Σh2eu2dVg−1)−ρ1(h1eu1∫Σh1eu1dVg−1)−Δu2=−4π∑j=1mα2,j(δpj−1), which is motivated by the study of models in non-abelian Chern-Simons theory. Here h1,h2 are smooth positive functions, ρ1,ρ2 two positive parameters, pi points of the surface and α1,i,α2,j non-negative numbers. We prove a general existence result using variational methods.The same analysis applies to the following mean field equation−Δu=ρ1(heu∫ΣheudVg−1)−ρ2(he−u∫Σhe−udVg−1), which arises in fluid dynamics.