This article is concerned with linear quadratic optimal control problems of mean-field stochastic differential equations (MF-SDE) with deterministic coefficients. To treat the time inconsistency of the optimal control problems, linear closed-loop equilibrium strategies are introduced and characterized by variational approach. Our developed methodology drops the delicate convergence procedures in Yong [Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 369 (2017) 5467–5523]. When the MF-SDE reduces to SDE, our Riccati system coincides with the analogue in Yong [Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 369 (2017) 5467–5523]. However, these two systems are in general different from each other due to the conditional mean-field terms in the MF-SDE. Eventually, the comparisons with pre-committed optimal strategies, open-loop equilibrium strategies are given in details.
