We study conformal harmonic coordinates on Riemannian manifolds. These are coordinates constructed as quotients of solutions to the conformal Laplace equation. We show their existence under general conditions. We find that conformal harmonic coordinates are a close conformal analogue of harmonic coordinates. We prove up to boundary regularity results for conformal mappings. We show that Weyl, Cotton, Bach, and Fefferman-Graham obstruction tensors become elliptic operators in conformal harmonic coordinates if one normalizes the determinant of the metric. We give a corresponding elliptic regularity result, which includes an analytic case. We prove a unique continuation result for local conformal flatness for Bach and obstruction flat manifolds. We discuss and prove existence of conformal harmonic coordinates on Lorentzian manifolds. We prove unique continuation results for conformal mappings both on Riemannian and Lorentzian manifolds.
This article studies the smoothness of conformal mappings between two Riemannian manifolds whose metric tensors have limited regularity. We show that any bi-Lipschitz conformal mapping or $1$-quasiregular mapping between two manifolds with $C^r$ metric tensors ($r > 1$) is a $C^{r+1}$ conformal (local) diffeomorphism. This result was proved in [12, 27, 33], but we give a new proof of this fact. The proof is based on $n$-harmonic coordinates, a generalization of the standard harmonic coordinates that is particularly suited to studying conformal mappings. We establish the existence of a $p$-harm…
Conformal harmonic maps from a 4-dimensional conformal manifold to a Riemannian manifold are maps satisfying a certain conformally invariant fourth order equation. We prove a general existence result for conformal harmonic maps, analogous to the Eells-Sampson theorem for harmonic maps. The proof uses a geometric flow and relies on results of Gursky-Viaclovsky and Lamm.
In a recent paper the author introduced a new method based on viscosity techniques for producing minimal surfaces by minmax arguments. The present work corresponds to the regularity part of the method. Precisely we establish that any weakly conformal $W^{1,2}$ map from a riemann surface $S$ into a closed oriented sub-manifold $N^n$ of an euclidian space ${\mathbb R}^m$ realizes a stationary varifold if and only if it is a smooth conformal harmonic map form $S$ into $N^n$.
We discuss non-conformal harmonic surfaces in $R^3$ with prescribed ($\pm$)transforms, and we get a representation formula for non-conformal harmonic surfaces in $R^3$.
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.
This paper is devoted to the study of the conformal spectrum (and more precisely the first eigenvalue) of the Laplace-Beltrami operator on a smooth connected compact Riemannian surface without boundary, endowed with a conformal class. We give a constructive proof of a critical metric which is smooth except at some conical singularities and maximizes the first eigenvalue in the conformal class of the background metric. We also prove that the map associating a finite number of eigenvectors of the maximizing $λ_1$ into the sphere is harmonic, establishing a link between conformal spectrum and har…
We describe for any Riemannian manifold a certain infinitesimal neighbourhood of the diagonal. Semi-conformal maps are analyzed as those that preserve such neighbourhoods; harmonic maps are analyzed as those that preserve mirror image formation for pairs of points in such neighbourhoods.
We extend harmonic map techniques to the setting of more general differential equations in conformal geometry. We obtain an extension of Siu's rigidity to Kahler-Weyl geometry and apply the latter to Vaisman's conjecture. Other applications include topological obstructions to the existence of Kahler-Weyl structures. For example, we show that no co-compact lattice in SO(1,n), n>2, can be the fundamental group of a compact Kahler-Weyl manifold of certain type.
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…
We are studying the harmonic and twistor equation on Lorentzian surfaces, that is a two dimensional orientable manifold with a metric of signature $(1,1)$. We will investigate the properties of the solutions of these equations and try to relate the conformal invariant dimension of the space of harmonic and twistor spinors to the natural conformal invariants given by the Lorentzian metric. We will introduce the notion of semi-conformally flat surfaces and establish a complete classification of the possible dimensions for this family.
We study the topology of a complete asymptotically hyperbolic Einstein manifold such that its conformal boundary has positive Yamabe invariant. We proved that all maps from such manifold into any nonpositively curved manifold are homotopically trivial. Our proof is based on a Bochner type argument on harmonic maps.
We propose a novel meshless method to compute harmonic maps and conformal maps for surfaces embedded in the Euclidean 3-space, using point cloud data only. Given a surface, or a point cloud approximation, we simply use the standard cubic lattice to approximate its $ε$-neighborhood. Then the harmonic map of the surface can be approximated by discrete harmonic maps on lattices. The conformal map, or the surface uniformization, is achieved by minimizing the Dirichlet energy of the harmonic map while deforming the target surface of constant curvature. We propose algorithms and numerical examples f…
Consider an asymptotically flat Riemannian manifold $(M,g)$ of dimension $n \geq 3$ with nonempty compact boundary. We recall the harmonic conformal class $[g]_h$ of the metric, which consists of all conformal rescalings given by a harmonic function raised to an appropriate power. The geometric significance is that every metric in $[g]_h$ has the same pointwise sign of scalar curvature. For this reason, the harmonic conformal class appears in the study of general relativity, where scalar curvature is related to energy density. Our purpose is to introduce and study invariants of the harmonic co…
We prove existence of harmonic coordinates for the nonlinear Laplacian of a Finsler manifold and apply them in a proof of the Myers--Steenrod theorem for Finsler manifolds. Different from the Riemannian case, these coordinates are not suitable for studying optimal regularity of the fundamental tensor, nevertheless, we obtain some partial results in this direction when the Finsler metric is Berwald.
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.
Symmetry operators of twistor spinors and harmonic spinors can be constructed from conformal Killing-Yano forms. Transformation operators relating twistors to harmonic spinors are found in terms of potential forms. These constructions are generalized to gauged twistor spinors and gauged harmonic spinors. The operators that transform gauged twistor spinors to gauged harmonic spinors are found. Symmetry operators of gauged harmonic spinors in terms of conformal Killing-Yano forms are obtained. Algebraic conditions to obtain solutions of the Seiberg-Witten equations are discussed.
We prove the equivalence of several natural notions of conformal maps between sub-Riemannian manifolds. Our main contribution is in the setting of those manifolds that support a suitable regularity theory for subelliptic $p$-Laplacian operators. For such manifolds we prove a Liouville-type theorem, i.e., 1-quasiconformal maps are smooth. In particular, we prove that contact manifolds support the suitable regularity. The main new technical tools are a sub-Riemannian version of p-harmonic coordinates and a technique of propagation of regularity from horizontal layers.
The first result in this study is a non-existence theorem for $α-$harmonic mappings. Additionally, a direct connection between the $α-$ harmonic and harmonic maps is made possible via conformal deformation. Second, the instability of non-constant $α$-harmonic maps is investigated with regard to the target manifold's Ricci curvature requirements. Next, the concept of $α-$stable manifolds and their physical applications are explored. Finally, it is investigated the $α-$stability of compact Riemannian manifolds that admit a non-isometric conformal vector field as well as the Einstein Riemannian m…
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 confo…
In this paper, we first study the $α-$energy functional, Euler-Lagrange operator and $α$-stress energy tensor. Second, it is shown that the critical points of $α-$ energy functional are explicitly related to harmonic maps through conformal deformation. In addition, an $α-$harmonic map is constructed from any smooth map between Riemannian manifolds under certain assumptions. Next, we determine the conditions under which the fibers of horizontally conformal $α-$ harmonic maps are minimal submanifolds. Then, the stability of any $α-$harmonic map from a Riemannian manifold to a Riemannian manifold…
In this paper, we provide new discrete uniformization theorems for bounded, $m$-connected planar domains. To this end, we consider a planar, bounded, $m$-connected domain $Ω$ and let $\bordΩ$ be its boundary. Let $\mathcal{T}$ denote a triangulation of $Ω\cup\bordΩ$. We construct a \emph{new} decomposition of $Ω\cup\bordΩ$ into a finite union of quadrilaterals with disjoint interiors. The construction is based on utilizing a {\it pair} of harmonic functions on ${\mathcal T}^{(0)}$ and properties of their level curves. In the sequel \cite{Her3} it will be proved that a particular discrete schem…
We consider codimension 2 sphere congruences in pseudo-conformal geometry that are harmonic with respect to the conformal structure of an orthogonal surface. We characterise the orthogonal surfaces of such congruences as either $S$-Willmore surfaces, quasi-umbilical surfaces, constant mean curvature surfaces in 3-dimensional space forms or surfaces of constant lightlike mean curvature in 3-dimensional lightcones. We then investigate Bryant's quartic differential in this context and show that generically this is divergence free if and only if the surface under consideration is either superconfo…
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…
This paper focuses on the development of harmonic and Clifford analysis techniques in the context of some conformally flat manifolds that arise from factoring out a simply-connected domain from $R^n$ by special arithmetic subgroups of the conformal group. Our discussion encompasses in particular the Hopf manifold $S^1 \times S^{n-1}$, conformally flat cylinders and tori and some conformally flat manifolds of genus $g \ge 2$, such as $k$-handled tori and polycylinders. This paper provides a continuation as well as an extension of our previous two papers \cite{KraRyan1,KraRyan2}. In particular, …
A vector field s on a Riemannian manifold M is said to be harmonic if there exists a member of a 2-parameter family of generalised Cheeger-Gromoll metrics on TM with respect to which s is a harmonic section. If M is a simply-connected non-flat space form other than the 2-sphere, examples are obtained of conformal vector fields that are harmonic. In particular, the harmonic Killing fields and conformal gradient fields are classified, a loop of non-congruent harmonic conformal fields on the hyperbolic plane constructed, and the 2-dimensional classification achieved for conformal fields. A classi…
For odd dimensional Poincaré-Einstein manifolds $(X^{n+1},g)$, we study the set of harmonic $k$-forms (for $k<\ndemi$) which are $C^m$ (with $m\in\nn$) on the conformal compactification $\bar{X}$ of $X$. This is infinite dimensional for small $m$ but it becomes finite dimensional if $m$ is large enough, and in one-to-one correspondence with the direct sum of the relative cohomology $H^k(\bar{X},\pl\bar{X})$ and the kernel of the Branson-Gover \cite{BG} differential operators $(L_k,G_k)$ on the conformal infinity $(\pl\bar{X},[h_0])$. In a second time we relate the set of $C^{n-2k+1}(Λ^k(\bar{X…
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…
Demoulin surfaces in real projective $3$-space are investigated. Our result enable us to establish a generalized Weierstrass type representation for definite Demoulin surfaces by virtue of primitive maps into a certain semi-Riemannian $6$-symmetric space.
We prove that for any open Riemann surface $N,$ natural number $n\geq 3,$ non-constant harmonic map $h:N\to \mathbb{R}^{n-2}$ and holomorphic 2-form $H$ on $N,$ there exists a weakly complete harmonic map $X=(X_j)_{j=1,\ldots,n}:N \to \mathbb{R}^n$ with Hopf differential $H$ and $(X_j)_{j=3,\ldots,n}=h.$ In particular, there exists a complete conformal minimal immersion $Y=(Y_j)_{j=1,\ldots,n}:N \to \mathbb{R}^n$ such that $(Y_j)_{j=3,\ldots,n}=h.$ As a consequence of these results, complete full non-decomposable minimal surfaces with arbitrary conformal structure and whose generalized Gauss m…
On four-dimensional closed manifolds we introduce a class of canonical Riemannian metrics, that we call weak harmonic Weyl metrics, defined as critical points in the conformal class of a quadratic functional involving the norm of the divergence of the Weyl tensor. This class includes Einstein and, more in general, harmonic Weyl manifolds. We prove that every closed four-manifold admits a weak harmonic Weyl metric, which is the unique (up to dilations) minimizer of the functional in a suitable conformal class. In general the problem is degenerate elliptic due to possible vanishing of the Weyl t…
In this article, we study harmonic symmetries on the compact locally conformally Kähler manifold $M$ of $dim_{\mathbb{C}}=n$. The space of harmonic symmetries is a subspace of harmonic differential forms which defined by the kernel of a certain Laplacian-type operator $\square$. We observe that the spaces $\ker(\square)\capΩ^{l}=\{0\}$ for any $|l-n|\geq2$ and $\kerΔ_{\bar{\partial}}\cap P^{k,n-1-k}\cap\ker(i_{θ^{\sharp}})\cong\ker(\square^{k,n-1-k})$, $\kerΔ_{\bar{\partial}}\cap P^{k,n-k}\cong\ker(\square^{k,n-k})$. Furthermore, suppose that $M$ is a Vaisman manifold, we prove that (i) $α$ is…
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 relate Kostant's theorem on the cohomology of a flag manifold $G/B$ with the geometry of the Bruhat-Poisson structure. We express Kostant's harmonic forms in terms of the moment maps (for the torus action) and the Liouville volume forms for the symplectic structures on the Schubert cells induced by the Bruhat-Poisson structure. We do this by writing everything down explicitly in some coordinates on each cell.
We prove that for any open Riemann surface $M$ and any non constant harmonic function $h:M \to \mathbb{R},$ there exists a complete conformal minimal immersion $X:M \to \mathbb{R}^3$ whose third coordinate function coincides with $h.$ As a consequence, complete minimal surfaces with arbitrary conformal structure and whose Gauss map misses two points are constructed.
The min-max construction of minimal spheres using harmonic replacement is introduced by Colding and Minicozzi and generalized by Zhou to conformal harmonic torus. We prove that the Morse index of the min-max conformal harmonic torus is bounded by one.
A Willmore surface $y:M\rightarrow S^{n+2}$ has a natural harmonic oriented conformal Gauss map $Gr_y:M\rightarrow SO^{+}(1,n+3)/SO(1,3)\times SO(n)$, which maps each point $p\in M$ to its oriented mean curvature 2-sphere at $p$. An easy observation shows that all conformal Gauss maps of Willmore surfaces satisfy a restricted nilpotency condition which will be called "strongly conformally harmonic." The goal of this paper is to characterize those strongly conformally harmonic maps from a Riemann surface $M$ to $SO^+ (1, n + 3)/{SO^+(1, 3) \times SO(n) }$ which are the conformal Gauss maps of s…
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…
In this paper, we study the existence of harmonic and bi-harmonic maps into Riemannian manifolds admitting a conformal vector field, or a nontrivial Ricci solitons.
We prove that any conformally flat submanifold with flat normal bundle in a conformally flat Riemannian manifold is locally holonomic, that is, admits a principal coordinate system. As one of the consequences of this fact, it is shown that the Ribaucour transformation can be used to construct an associated large family of immersions with induced conformal metrics holonomic with respect to the same coordinate system.
Let $(M^4,g)$ be a closed Riemannian manifold of dimension four. We investigate the properties of metrics which are critical points of the eigenvalues of the Paneitz operator when considered as functionals on the space of Riemannian metrics with fixed volume. We prove that critical metrics of the aforementioned functional restricted to conformal classes are associated with a higher-order analog of harmonic maps (known as extrinsic conformal-harmonic maps) into round spheres. This extends to four-manifolds well-known results on closed surfaces relating metrics maximizing laplacian eigenvalues i…
Riemann surfaces are two-dimensional manifolds with a conformal class of metrics. It is well known that the harmonic action functional and harmonic maps are tools to study the moduli space of Riemann surfaces. Super Riemann surfaces are an analogue of Riemann surfaces in the world of super geometry. After a short introduction to super differential geometry we will compare Riemann surfaces and super Riemann surfaces. We will see that super Riemann surfaces can be viewed as Riemann surfaces with an additional field, the gravitino. An extension of the harmonic action functional to super Riemann s…
We define two transforms between non-conformal harmonic maps from a surface into the 3-sphere. With these transforms one can construct, from one such harmonic map, a sequence of harmonic maps. We show that there is a correspondence between non-conformal harmonic maps into the 3-sphere, $H$-surfaces in Euclidean 3-space and almost complex surfaces in the nearly Kähler manifold $S^3\times S^3$. As a consequence we can construct sequences of $H$-surfaces and almost complex surfaces.
Let $φ\in C^0 \cap W^{1,2}(Σ, X)$ where $Σ$ is a compact Riemann surface, $X$ is a compact locally CAT(1) space, and $W^{1,2}(Σ,X)$ is defined as in Korevaar-Schoen. We use the technique of harmonic replacement to prove that either there exists a harmonic map $u:Σ\to X$ homotopic to $φ$ or there exists a conformal harmonic map $v:\mathbb S^2 \to X$. To complete the argument, we prove compactness for energy minimizers and a removable singularity theorem for conformal harmonic maps.
