We prove that the degree-one vortex solution is the unique minimizer for the Ginzburg–Landau functional for gradient fields (that is, the Aviles–Giga model) in the unit ball \(B^N\) in dimension \(N \ge 4\) and with respect to its boundary value. A similar result is also prove in a model for \(\mathbb {S}^N\) -valued maps arising in the theory of micromagnetics. Two methods are presented. The first method is an extension of the analogous technique previously used to treat the unconstrained Ginzburg–Landau functional in dimension \(N \ge 7\) . The second method uses a symmetrization procedure for gradient fields such that the \(L^2\) -norm is invariant while the \(L^p\) -norm with \(2< p < \infty \) and the \(H^1\) -norm are lowered.
