Inspired by the all-important conformal invariance of harmonic maps on two-dimensional domains, this article studies the relationship between biharmonicity and conformality. We first give a characterization of biharmonic morphisms, analogues of harmonic morphisms investigated by Fuglede and Ishihara, which, in particular, explicits the conditions required for a conformal map in dimension four to preserve biharmonicity and helps producing the first example of a biharmonic morphism which is not a special type of harmonic morphism. Then, we compute the bitension field of horizontally weakly conformal maps, which include conformal mappings. This leads to several examples of proper (i.e. non-harmonic) biharmonic conformal maps, in which dimension four plays a pivotal role. We also construct a family of Riemannian submersions which are proper biharmonic maps.
In this work we construct a variety of new complex-valued proper biharmonic maps and (2,1)-harmonic morphisms on Riemannian manifolds with non-trivial geometry. These are solutions to a non-linear system of partial differential equations depending on the geometric data of the manifolds involved.
Harmonic morphisms are maps between Riemannian manifolds that pull back harmonic functions to harmonic functions. These maps are characterized as horizontally weakly conformal harmonic maps and they have many interesting links and applications to several areas in mathematics (see the book by Baird and Wood for details). In this paper, we study generalized harmonic morphisms which are defined to be maps between Riemannian manifolds that pull back harmonic functions to biharmonic functions. We obtain some characterizations of generalized harmonic morphisms into a Euclidean space and give two met…
This note reviews some of the recent work on biharmonic conformal maps (see \cite{OC}, Chapter 11, for a detailed survey). It will be focused on biharmonic conformal immersions and biharmonic conformal maps between manifolds of the same dimension and their links to isoparametric functions and Yamabe type equations, though biharmonic morphisms (maps that preserve solutions of bi-Laplace equations), generalized harmonic morphisms (maps that pull back germs of harmonic functions to germs of biharmonic functions), and biharmonic conformal and Riemannian submersions will also be touched.
We construct a new class of biharmonic maps, which are the critical points for the bienergy functional, by deforming conformally the codomain metric of harmonic Riemannian submersions such that they become nonharmonic but biharmonic.
Motivated by the beautiful theory and the rich applications of harmonic conformal immersions and conformal immersions of constant mean curvature (CMC) surfaces, we study biharmonic conformal immersions of surfaces into a generic 3-manifold. We first derive an invariant equation for such immersions, we then try to answer the question, "what surfaces can be biharmonically conformally immersed into Euclidean 3-space?" We prove that a circular cylinder is the only CMC surface that can be biharmonically conformally immersed into a Euclidean 3-space; We obtain a classification of biharmonic conforma…
We prove that the problem of constructing biharmonic conformal maps on a $4$-dimensional Einstein manifold reduces to a Yamabe-type equation. This allows us to construct an infinite family of examples on the Euclidean 4-sphere. In addition, we characterize all solutions on Euclidean 4-space and show that there exists at least one non-constant proper biharmonic conformal map from any closed Einstein 4-manifold of negative Ricci curvature.
We give a complete classification of local and global conformal biharmonic maps between any two space forms by proving that a conformal map between two space forms is proper biharmonic if and only if the dimension is 4, the domain is flat, and it is a restriction of a Möbius transformation. We also show that proper k-polyharmonic conformal maps between Euclidean spaces exist if and only if the dimension is 2k and they are precisely the restrictions of Möbius transformations. This provides infinitely many simple examples of proper k-polyharmonic maps with nice geometric structure.
We continue our study [Ou4] of f-biharmonic maps and f-biharmonic submanifolds by exploring the applications of f-biharmonic maps and the relationships among biharmonicity, f-biharmonicity and conformality of maps between Riemannian manifolds. We are able to characterize harmonic maps and minimal submanifolds by using the concept of f-biharmonic maps and prove that the set of all f-biharmonic maps from 2-dimensional domain is invariant under the conformal change of the metric on the domain. We give an improved equation for f-biharmonic hypersurfaces and use it to prove some rigidity theorems a…
We give conditions on the Lee vector field of an almost Hermitian manifold such that any holomorphic map from this manifold into a (1,2)-symplectic manifold must satisfy the fourth-order condition of being biharmonic, hence generalizing the Lichnerowicz theorem on harmonic maps. These third-order non-linear conditions are shown to greatly simplify on l.c.K. manifolds and construction methods and examples are given in all dimensions.
For the reduction ordinary differential equation due to Baird and Kamissoko \cite{BK} for biharmonic maps from a Riemannian manifold $(M^m,g)$ into another one $(N^n,h)$, we show that this ODE has no global positive solution for every $m\geq 5$. On the contrary, we show that there exist global positive solutions in the case $m=3$. As applications, for the the Riemannian product $(M^3,g)$ of the line and a Riemann surface, we construct the new metric $\widetilde{g}$ on $M^3$ conformal to $g$ such that every nontrivial product harmonic map from $M^3$ with respect to the original metric $g$ must …
This paper studies conformal biharmonic immersions. We first study the transformations of Jacobi operator and the bitension field under conformal change of metrics. We then obtain an invariant equation for a conformal biharmonic immersion of a surface into Euclidean 3-space. As applications, we construct a 2-parameter family of non-minimal conformal biharmonic immersions of cylinder into $\r^3$ and some examples of conformal biharmonic immersions of 4-dimensional Euclidean space into sphere and hyperbolic space thus provide many simple examples of proper biharmonic maps with rich geometric mea…
f-Biharmonic maps are the extrema of the f-bienergy functional. f-biharmonic submanifolds are submanifolds whose defining isometric immersions are f-biharmonic maps. In this paper, we prove that an f-biharmonic map from a compact Riemannian manifold into a non-positively curved manifold with constant f-bienergy density is a harmonic map; any f-biharmonic function on a compact manifold is constant, and that the inversions about $S^m$ for $m\ge 3$ are proper f-biharmonic conformal diffeomorphisms. We derive f-biharmonic submanifolds equations and prove that a surface in a manifold $(N^n, h)$ is …
Biharmonic maps between surfaces are studied in this paper. We compute the bitension field of a map between surfaces with conformal metrics in complex coordinates. As applications, we show that a linear map from Euclidean plane into $(\mathbb{R}^2, σ^2dwd\bar w)$ is always biharmonic if the conformal factor $σ$ is bi-analytic; we construct a family of such $ σ$, and we give a classification of linear biharmonic maps between $2$-spheres. We also study biharmonic maps between surfaces with warped product metrics. This includes a classification of linear biharmonic maps between hyperbolic planes …
We study biharmonic maps and f-biharmonic maps from a round sphere $(S^2, g_0)$, the latter maps are equivalent to biharmonic maps from Riemann spheres $(S^2, f^{-1}g_0)$. We proved that for rotationally symmetric maps between rotationally symmetric spaces, both biharmonicity and f-biharmonicity reduce to a 2nd order linear ordinary differential equation. As applications, we give a method to produce biharmonic maps and f-biharmonic maps from given biharmonic maps and we construct many examples of biharmonic and f-biharmonic maps from a round sphere $S^2$ and between two round spheres. Our exam…
We study biharmonic maps between Riemannian manifolds with finite energy and finite bi-energy. We show that if the domain is complete and the target of non-positive curvature, then such a map is harmonic. We then give applications to isometric immersions and horizontally conformal submersions.
In this note, we generalize biharmonic equation for rotationally symmetric maps ([4], [16], [10]) to equivariant maps between model spaces and use it to give a complete classification of rotationally symmetric conformal biharmonic maps from a $4$-dimensional space form into a $4$-dimensional model space. We also give an improved second variation formula for biharmonic maps into a space form and use it to prove that there exists no stable proper biharmonic maps with constant square norm of tension field from a compact Riemannian manifold without boundary into a space form of positive sectional …
Motivated by the rich theory of harmonic maps from a 2-sphere, we study biharmonic maps from a 2-sphere in this paper. We first derive biharmonic equation for rotationally symmetric maps between rotationally symmetric 2-manifolds. We then apply the equation to obtain a classification of biharmonic maps in a family of rotationally symmetric maps between 2-spheres. We also find many examples of proper biharmonic maps defined locally on a 2-sphere. Our results seem to suggest that any biharmonic map $S^2\longrightarrow (N^n, h)$ be a weakly conformal immersion.
The main aim of this paper is to study existence and stability properties of rotationally symmetric proper biharmonic maps between two $m$-dimensional models (in the sense of Greene and Wu). We obtain a complete classification of rotationally symmetric, proper biharmonic conformal diffeomorphisms in the special case that $m=4$ and the models have constant sectional curvature. Then, by introducing the Hamiltonian associated to this problem, we also obtain a complete description of conformal proper biharmonic solutions in the case that the domain model is ${\mathbb R}^4$. In the second part of t…
We classify the harmonic morphisms with one-dimensional fibres (1) from real-analytic conformally-flat Riemannian manifolds of dimension at least four, and (2) between conformally-flat Riemannian manifolds of dimensions at least three.
We show that under some non-degeneracy assumption the only submersive harmonic morphism on a conformally flat $3-$sphere is the Hopf fibration. The proof involves an appropriate use the Chern-Simons functional.
We call indexed-biharmonic maps, the solutions of a particular non linear elliptic PDE of order 4. This is a generalization of harmonic maps which verifies that biharmonic maps are biharmonic of index 0. The goal of this article is to study submanifolds of $\mathbb{S}^n$ whose inclusion is non harmonic and indexed-biharmonic (i.e. proper indexed-biharmonic). We give some pseudo-umbilical and non pseudo-umbilical examples and we study the link between the proper indexed-biharmonic submanifolds of $\mathbb{S}^n$ and the proper conformal-harmonic submanifolds of $\mathbb{S}^n$.
In this paper, we prove that the class of bi-f-harmonic maps and that of f-biharmonic maps from a conformal manifold of dimension not equal to 2 are the same (Theorem 1.1). We also give several results on nonexistence of proper bi-f-harmonic maps and f-biharmonic maps from complete Riemannian manifolds into nonpositively curved Riemannian manifolds. These include: any bi-f-harmonic map from a compact manifold into a non-positively curved manifold is f-harmonic (Theorem 1.6), and any f-biharmonic (respectively, bi-f-harmonic) map with bounded f and bounded f-bienrgy (respectively, bi-f-energy) …
We prove that any (real or complex) analytic horizontally conformal submersion from a three-dimensional conformal manifold M to a two-dimensional conformal manifold N can be, locally, `extended' to a unique harmonic morphism from the heaven space of M to N.
We study left-invariant foliations $\mathcal{F}$ on Riemannian Lie groups $G$ generated by a subgroup $K$. We are interested in such foliations which are conformal and with minimal leaves of codimension two. We classify such foliations $\mathcal{F}$ when the subgroup $K$ is one of the important $\textbf{SU}(2)\times\textbf{SU}(2)$, $\textbf{SU}(2)\times\textbf{SL}_2(\mathbb{R})$, $\textbf{SU}(2)\times\textbf{SO}(2)$ or $\textbf{SL}_2(\mathbb{R})\times\textbf{SO}(2)$. By this we yield new multi-dimensional families of Lie groups $G$ carrying such foliations in each case. These foliations $\math…
f-Harmonic maps were first introduced and studied by Lichnerowicz in \cite{Li} (see also Section 10.20 in Eells-Lemaire's report \cite{EL}). In this paper, we study a subclass of f-harmonic maps called f-harmonic morphisms which pull back local harmonic functions to local f-harmonic functions. We prove that a map between Riemannian manifolds is an f-harmonic morphism if and only if it is a horizontally weakly conformal f-harmonic map. This generalizes the well-known Fuglede-Ishihara characterization for harmonic morphisms. Some properties and many examples as well as some non-existence of f-ha…
We consider four dimensional Lie groups with left-invariant Riemannian metrics. For such groups we classify left-invariant conformal foliations with minimal leaves of codimension two. These foliations produce local complex-valued harmonic morphisms.
We consider 5-dimensional Lie groups with left-invariant Riemannian metrics. For such groups we give a partial classification of left-invariant conformal foliations with minimal leaves of codimension 2. These foliations produce local complex-valued harmonic morphisms.
Relating the Dirac operators on the total space and on the base manifold of a horizontally conformal submersion, we characterize Dirac morphisms, i.e. maps which pull back (local) harmonic spinor fields onto (local) harmonic spinor fields.
We investigate horizontal conformality of a differential of a map between Riemannian manifolds where the tangent bundles are equipped with Cheeger--Gromoll type metrics. As a corollary, we characterize the differential of a map as a harmonic morphism.
Equivalences between conformal foliations on Euclidean $3$-space, Hermitian structures on Euclidean $4$-space, shear-free ray congruences on Minkowski $4$-space, and holomorphic foliations on complex $4$-space are explained geometrically and twistorially; these are used to show that 1) any real-analytic complex-valued harmonic morphism without critical points defined on an open subset of Minkowski space is conformally equivalent to the direction vector field of a shear-free ray congruence, 2) the boundary values at infinity of a complex-valued harmonic morphism on hyperbolic $4$-space define a…
In this paper we generalize harmonic maps and morphisms to the \emph{degenerate semi-Riemannian category}, in the case when the manifolds $M$ and $N$ are \emph{stationary} and the map $ϕ:M\to N$ is \emph{radical-preserving}. We characterize geometrically the notion of \emph{(generalized) horizontal (weak) conformality} and we obtain a characterization for (generalized) harmonic morphisms in terms of (generalized) harmonic maps.
We study 4-dimensional Riemannian manifolds equipped with a minimal and conformal foliation $\mathcal F$ of codimension 2. We prove that the two adapted almost Hermitian structures $J_1$ and $J_2$ are both cosymplectic if and only if $\mathcal F$ is Riemannian and its horizontal distribution $\mathcal H$ is integrable.
We characterise the actions, by holomorphic isometries on a Kähler manifold with zero first Betti number, of an abelian Lie group of dim\geq 2, for which the moment map is horizontally weakly conformal (with respect to some Euclidean structure on the Lie algebra of the group). Furthermore, we study the hyper-Kähler moment map $ϕ$ induced by an abelian Lie group T acting by triholomorphic isometries on a hyper-Kähler manifold M, with zero first Betti number, thus obtaining the following: If dim T=1 then $ϕ$ is a harmonic morphism. Moreover, we illustrate this on the tangent bundle of the comple…
We describe the relationship between complex-valued harmonic morphisms from Minkowski 4-space} and the shear-free ray congruences of mathematical physics. Then we show how a horizontally conformal submersion on a domain of Euclidean 3-space gives the boundary values at infinity of a complex-valued harmonic morphism on hyperbolic 4-space.
We construct 4-dimensional Riemannian Lie groups carrying left-invariant conformal foliations with minimal leaves of codimension 2. We show that these foliations are holomorphic with respect to an (integrable) Hermitian structure which is not K\" ahler. We then prove that the Riemannian Lie groups constructed are {\it not} Einstein manifolds. This answers an important open question in the theory of complex-valued harmonic morphisms from Riemannian 4-manifolds.
We characterize general pseudo-harmonic morphisms from a Riemannian manifold to a Hermitian manifold as pseudo horizontally weakly conformal maps with an additional property. We study to what extent we can (locally) describe these submersive pseudo-harmonic morphisms via the foliation given by the kernel of the associated f-structure. In a second part, we point out that, in the case of pseudo-harmonic morphisms with one and two-dimensional fibers, the induced f-structure gives rise to an almost contact, respectively almost complex structure on the domain. We give criteria for normality and int…
We use functions of a bicomplex variable to unify the existing constructions of harmonic morphisms from a 3-dimensional Euclidean or pseudo-Euclidean space to a Riemannian or Lorentzian surface. This is done by using the notion of complex-harmonic morphism between complex-Riemannian manifolds and showing how these are given by bicomplex-holomorphic functions when the codomain is one-bicomplex dimensional. By taking real slices, we recover well-known compactifications for the three possible real cases. On the way, we discuss some interesting conformal compactifications of complex-Riemannian man…
A conformal change of $TM\oplus T^*M$ is a morphism of the form $(X,α)\mapsto(X,e^τα)$ $(X\in TM,α\in T^*M,τ\in C^\infty(M))$. We characterize the generalized almost complex and almost Hermitian structures that are locally conformal to integrable and to generalized Kähler structures, respectively, and give examples of such structures.
P. Baird and the second author studied harmonic morphisms from a three-dimensional simply-connected space form to a surface and obtained a complete local and global classification of them. In this paper, we obtain a description of all harmonic morphisms from any three-dimensional Euclidean and spherical space form to a surface, namely that any such harmonic morphism is the composition of a standard harmonic morphism and a weakly conformal map. We list the standard harmonic morphisms.
We study a geometrical condition (PHWC) which is weaker than horizontal weak conformality. In particular, we show that harmonic maps satisfying this condition, which will be called {\em pseudoharmonic morphisms}, include harmonic morphisms and can be described as pulling back certain germs to certain other germs. Finally, we construct a canonical f-structure associated to every map satisfying (PHWC) and find conditions on this f-structure to ensure the harmonicity of the map.
