In this paper, we solve a new elliptic-parabolic system arising in geometric analysis that is motivated by the nonlinear supersymmetric sigma model of quantum field theory. The corresponding action functional involves two fields, a map from a Riemann surface into a Riemannian manifold and a spinor coupled to the map. The first fields has to satisfy a second order elliptic system, which we turn into a parabolic system so as to apply heat flow techniques. The spinor, however, satisfies a first order Dirac type equation. We carry that equation as a nonlinear constraint along the flow.

With this novel scheme, in more technical terms, we can show the existence of Dirac-harmonic maps from a compact spin Riemann surface with smooth boundary to a general compact Riemannian manifold via a heat flow method when a Dirichlet boundary condition is imposed on the map and a chiral boundary condition on the spinor.