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.
In this paper, we will prove a result of nonexistence on harmonic diffeomorphisms between punctured spaces. In particular, we will given an elementary proof to the nonexistence of rotationally symmetric harmonic diffeomorphisms from the punctured Euclidean space onto the punctured hyperbolic space.
Nonexistence of quasi-harmonic spheres is necessary for long time existence and convergence of harmonic map heat flows. Let $(N,h)$ be a complete noncompact Riemannian manifolds. Assume the universal covering of $(N,h)$ admits a nonnegative strictly convex function with polynomial growth. Then there is no quasi-harmonic spheres $u:\mathbb{R}^n\ra N$ such that $$\lim_{r\ra\infty}r^ne^{-\f{r^2}{4}}\int_{|x|\leq r}e^{-\f{|x|^2}{4}}|\nabla u|^2dx=0.$$ This generalizes a result of the first named author and X. Zhu (Calc. Var., 2009). Our method is essentially the Moser iteration and thus very simpl…
In this paper we study the properties of quasi-harmonic spheres from $\R^m, m>2$. We show that if the universal covering $\tilde N$ of $N$ admits a nonnegative strictly convex function $ρ$ with the exponential growth condition $ρ(y)\leq C\exp\left(\frac14\tilde d(y)^{2/m}\right)$ where $\tilde d(y)$ is the distance function on $\tilde N$, then $N$ does not admit a quasi-harmonic sphere, which generalize Li-Zhu's result \cite{Li2010non}. We also show that if $u$ is a quasi-harmonic sphere, then the property that $u$ is of finite energy ($\int_{\R^m}e(u)e^{-\abs{x}^2/4}\dif x<\infty$) is equival…
In this note we prove a nonexistence result for proper biharmonic maps from complete non-compact Riemannian manifolds of dimension \(m=\dim M\geq 3\) with infinite volume that admit an Euclidean type Sobolev inequality into general Riemannian manifolds by assuming finiteness of $\|τ(ϕ)\|_{L^p(M)}, p>1$ and smallness of $\|dϕ\|_{L^m(M)}$. This is an improvement of a recent result of the first named author, where he assumed $2<p<m$. As applications we also get several nonexistence results for proper biharmonic submersions from complete non-compact manifolds into general Riemannian manifolds.
Let $u: (M, g)\to (N, h)$ be a map between Riemannian manifolds $(M, g)$ and $(N, h)$. The $p$-bienergy of $u$ is defined by $E_p(u)=\int_M|τ(u)|^pdν_g$, where $τ(u)$ is the tension field of $u$ and $p>1$. Critical points of $E_p(\cdot)$ are called $p$-biharmonic maps. In this paper we will prove nonexistence result of proper $p$-biharmonic maps when $p\geq2$. In particular when $M=\mathbb{R}^m$, we get Liouville type results under proper integral conditions , which extend the related results of Baird, Fardoun and Ouakkas \cite{BFO}.
In this short note we study nonexistence result of biharmonic maps from a complete Riemannian manifold into a Riemannian manifold with nonpositive sectional curvature. Assume that $ϕ:(M,g)\to (N, h)$ is a biharmonic map, where $(M, g)$ is a complete Riemannian manifold and $(N,h)$ a Riemannian manifold with nonpositive sectional curvature, we will prove that $ϕ$ is a harmonic map if one of the following conditions holds: (i) $|dϕ|$ is bounded in $L^q(M)$ and $ \int_M|τ(ϕ)|^pdv_g<\infty, $ for some $1\leq q\leq\infty$, $1< p<\infty$; or (ii) $Vol(M)=\infty$ and $ \int_M|τ(ϕ)|^pdv_g<\infty, $ fo…
We provide new conditions that ensure that two metric measure spaces are not quasiconformally equivalent. As an application we deduce that there exists no quasiconformal map between the sub-Riemannian Heisenberg and roto-translation groups.
In this paper, we show that the nonexistence of rotationally symmetric harmonic diffeomorphism between the unit disk without the origin and a punctured disc with hyperbolic metric on the target.
In this paper, we prove the nonexistence of $L^2$ harmonic 1-forms on a complete super stable minimal submanifold $M$ in hyperbolic space under the assumption that the first eigenvalue $λ_1 (M)$ for the Laplace operator on $M$ is bounded below by $(2n-1)(n-1)$. Moreover, we provide sufficient conditions for minimal submanifolds in hyperbolic space to be super stable.
We introduce and study generalized $1$-harmonic equations (1.1). Using some ideas and techniques in studying $1$-harmonic functions from [W1] (2007), and in studying nonhomogeneous $1$-harmonic functions on a cocompact set from [W2, (9.1)] (2008), we find an analytic quantity $w$ in the generalized $1$-harmonic equations (1.1) on a domain in a Riemannian $n$-manifold that affects the behavior of weak solutions of (1.1), and establish its link with the geometry of the domain. We obtain, as applications, some gradient bounds and nonexistence results for the inverse mean curvature flow, Liouville…
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) …
In the paper, we study variation formulas for transversally harmonic maps and bi-harmonic maps, respectively. We also study the transversal Jacobi field along a map and give several relations with infinitesimal automorphisms.
J. Eells and L. Lemaire introduced k-harmonic maps, and Wang Shaobo showed the first variational formula. When, k=2, it is called biharmonic maps (2-harmonic maps). There have been extensive studies in the area. In this paper, we consider the relationship between biharmonic maps and k-harmonic maps, and show non-existence theorem of 3-harmonic maps. We also give the definition of k-harmonic submanifolds of Euclidean spaces, and study k-harmonic curve in Euclidean spaces. Futhermore, we give a conjecture for k-harmonic submanifolds of Euclidean spaces.
Both bi-harmonic map and $f$-harmonic map have nice physical motivation and applications. In this paper, by combination of these two harmonic maps, we introduce and study $f$-bi-harmonic maps as the critical points of the $f$-bi-energy functional $\frac{1}{2}\int_M f|τ(ϕ)|^2dv_{g}$. This class of maps generalizes both concepts of harmonic maps and bi-harmonic maps. We first derive the $f$-biharmonic map equation and then use it to study $f$-bi-harmonicity of some special maps, including conformal maps between manifolds of same dimensions, some product maps between direct product manifold and s…
In this note, we investigate estimates of the Morse index for F-harmonic maps into spheres, our results extend partially those obtained in ([14]) and ([15]) for harmonic and p-harmonic maps.
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 this paper, we extend the definition of p-harmonic and p-biharmonic maps between Riemannian manifolds. We present some new properties for the generalized stable p-harmonic maps.
$α$-Dirac-harmonic maps are variations of Dirac-harmonic maps, analogous to $α$-harmonic maps that were introduced by Sacks-Uhlenbeck to attack the existence problem for harmonic maps from surfaces. For $α>1$, the latter are known to satisfy a Palais-Smale condtion, and so, the technique of Sacks-Uhlenbeck consists in constructing $α$-harmonic maps for $α>1$ and then letting $α\to 1$. The extension of this scheme to Dirac-harmonic maps meets with several difficulties, and in this paper, we start attacking those. We first prove the existence of nontrivial perturbed $α$-Dirac-harmonic maps when …
The CR analogue of B.-Y. Chen's conjecture on pseudo biharmonic maps will be shown. Pseudo biharmonic, but not pseudo harmonic, isometric immersions with parallel pseudo mean curvature vector fields, will be characterized. Several examples of pseudo biharmonic maps will be given.
In this note, we show that some F-harmonic maps into spheres are global maxima of the variations of their energy functional on the conformal group of the sphere. Our result extends partially those obtained in [15] and [17] for harmonic and p-harmonic maps.
J.Eells and L. Lemaire introduced k-harmonic maps, and T. Ichiyama, J. Inoguchi and H.Urakawa showed the first variation formula. In this paper, we give the second variation formula of k-harmonic maps, and show non-existence theorem of proper k-harmonic maps into a Riemannian manifold of non-positive curvature (k >= 2). We also study k-harmonic maps into the product Riemannian manifold, and describe the ordinary differential equations of 3-harmonic curves and 4-harmonic curves into a sphere, and show their non-trivial solutions.
We study the transversally harmonic maps between foliated Riemannian manifolds. In particular, we prove that under some curvature conditions, any transversally harmonic map is transversally totally geodesic.
In this paper, we give some rigidity results for both harmonic and pseudoharmonic maps from CR manifolds into Riemannian manifolds or Kahler manifolds. Some basicity, pluriharmonicity and Siu-Sampson type results are established for both harmonic maps and pseudoharmonic maps.
We introduce and study an approximate solution of the p-Laplace equation, and a linearlization $L_ε$ of a perturbed p-Laplace operator. By deriving an $L_ε$-type Bochner's formula and a Kato type inequality, we prove a Liouville type theorem for weakly p-harmonic functions with finite p-energy on a complete noncompact manifold M which supports a weighted Poincaré inequality and satisfies a curvature assumption. This nonexistence result, when combined with an existence theorem, yields in turn some information on topology, i.e. such an M has at most one p-hyperbolic end. Moreover, we prove a Lio…
Characterizations for Riemannian submersions to be harmonic or biharmonic are shown. Examples of biharmonic but not harmonic Riemannian submersions are shown.
We factorize harmonic maps with values in a semisimple Lie groups in a product of harmonic maps with values in the components of the Iwasawa decomposition. In particular, we use this factorization to study the harmonic maps from $\mathbb{R}^n$ into $SL(2,\mathbb{R})$.
We relate the existence problem of harmonic maps into $S^2$ to the convex geometry of $S^2$. On one hand, this allows us to construct new examples of harmonic maps of degree 0 from compact surfaces of arbitrary genus into $S^2$. On the other hand, we produce new example of regions that do not contain closed geodesics (that is, harmonic maps from $S^1$) but do contain images of harmonic maps from other domains. These regions can therefore not support a strictly convex function. Our construction builds upon an example of W. Kendall, and uses M. Struwe's heat flow approach for the existence of ha…
We prove uniqueness of equivariant harmonic maps into irreducible symmetric spaces of non-compact type and Euclidean buildings associated to isometric actions by Zariski dense subgroups.
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…
The heat flow for Dirac-harmonic maps on Riemannian spin manifolds is a modification of the classical heat flow for harmonic maps by coupling it to a spinor. It was introduced by Chen, Jost, Sun, and Zhu as a tool to get a general existence program for Dirac-harmonic maps. For source manifolds with boundary they obtained short time existence and the existence of a global weak solution was established by Jost, Liu, and Zhu. We prove short time existence of the heat flow for Dirac-harmonic maps on closed manifolds.
In this paper, we consider transversally harmonic maps between Riemannian manifolds with Riemannian foliations. In terms of the Bochner techniques and sub-Laplacian comparison theorem, we are able to establish a generalization of the Schwarz lemma for transversally harmonic maps of bounded generalized transversal dilatation. In addition, we also obtain a Schwarz type lemma for transversally holomorphic maps between Kähler foliations.
In this paper, we investigate the stability problem of subelliptic harmonic maps with potential. First, we derive the first and second variation formulas for subelliptic harmonic maps with potential. As a result, it is proved that a subelliptic harmonic map with potential is stable if the target manifold has nonpositive curvature and the Hessian of the potential is nonpositive definite. We also give Leung type results which involve the instability of subelliptic harmonic maps with potential when the target manifold is a sphere of dimension $\geq 3$.
Our purpose is to use a Darboux homogenous derivative to understand the harmonic maps with values in homogeneous space. We present a characterization of these harmonic maps from the geometry of homogeneous space. Furthermore, our work covers all type of invariant geometry in homogeneous space.
Shoen and Uhlenbeck showed that ``tangent maps'' can be defined at singular points of energy minimizing maps. Unfortunately these are not unique, even for generic boundary conditions. Examples are discussed which have isolated singularities with a continuum of distinct tangent maps.
In this paper, we investigate subelliptic harmonic maps with potential from noncompact complete sub-Riemannian manifolds corresponding to totally geodesic Riemannian foliations. Under some suitable conditions, we give the gradient estimates of these maps and establish a Liouville type result.
We study the existence of harmonic maps and Dirac-harmonic maps from degenerating surfaces to non-positive curved manifold via the scheme of Sacks and Uhlenbeck. By choosing a suitable sequence of $α$-(Dirac-)harmonic maps from a sequence of suitable closed surfaces degenerating to a hyperbolic surface, we get the convergence and a cleaner energy identity under the uniformly bounded energy assumption. In this energy identity, there is no energy loss near the punctures. As an application, we obtain an existence result about (Dirac-)harmonic maps from degenerating (spin) surfaces. If the energie…
We generalize the Uhlenbeck-Segal theory for harmonic maps into compact semi-simple Lie groups to general Lie groups equipped with torsion free bi-invariant connection.
We find algebraic parametrizations of extended solutions of harmonic maps of finite uniton number from a surface to the orthogonal group O(n) in terms of free holomorphic data which lead to formulae for all such harmonic maps. Our work reveals an interesting correspondence between certain harmonic maps and the free Weierstrass representation of null curves and minimal surfaces in 3- and 4-space.
We extend many known results for harmonic maps from the 2-sphere into a Grassmannian to harmonic maps of finite uniton number from an arbitrary Riemann surface. Our method relies on a new theory of nilpotent cycles arising from the diagrams of F.E.~Burstall and the second author associated to such harmonic maps; these properties arise from a criterion for finiteness of the uniton number found recently by the authors with A.~Aleman. Applications include a new classification result on minimal surfaces of constant curvature and a constancy result for finite type harmonic maps.
We study the blow-up analysis and qualitative behavior for a sequence of harmonic maps with free boundary from degenerating bordered Riemann surfaces with uniformly bounded energy. With the help of Pohozaev type constants associated to harmonic maps defined on degenerating collars, including vertical boundary collars and horizontal boundary collars, we establish a generalized energy identity.
Non-polynomial growth harmonic maps from the complex plane to the hyperbolic space are studied. Some non-surjectivity results are obtained. Moreover, images of such harmonic maps are investigated with reference to their Hopf differentials.
We prove that when assuming suitable non-degeneracy conditions equivariant harmonic maps into symmetric spaces of non-compact type depend in a real analytic fashion on the representation they are associated to. The main tool in the proof is the construction of a family of deformation maps which are used to transform equivariant harmonic maps into maps mapping into a fixed target space so that a real analytic version of the results in \cite{EellsLemaire} can be applied.
In this paper, we first obtain an $L^q$ gradient estimate for $p$-harmonic maps, by assuming the target manifold supporting a certain function, whose gradient and Hessian satisfy some analysis conditions. From this $L^q$ gradient estimate, we get a corresponding Liouville type result for $p$-harmonic maps. Secondly, using these general results, we give various geometric applications to $p$-harmonic maps from complete manifolds with nonnegative Ricci curvature to manifolds with various upper bound on sectional curvature, under appropriate controlled images.
In [5], together with J. C. Wood, the authors gave a completely explicit formula for all harmonic maps from $2$-spheres to the unitary group $U(n)$ in terms of freely chosen meromorphic functions on $S^2$. The simplest harmonic maps are the isotropic ones. Using Morse theory Burstall and Guest [1] showed that the harmonic maps come in clusters labeled by the isotropic ones. In this work, using the formula for harmonic maps aforementioned, we describe explicitly this procedure, showing how all harmonic maps can be built from the isotropic ones. [1] F.~E.\ Burstall and M.~A.\ Guest, \textit{Harm…
We present some results about harmonic maps with possibly infinite energy from punctured Riemann surfaces to CAT(0) spaces. In particular, we give precise estimates of their energy growth near the punctures and prove their uniqueness.
Generalizing the result of Li and Tam for the hyperbolic spaces, we prove an existence theorem on the Dirichlet problem for harmonic maps with $C^1$ boundary conditions at infinity between asymptotically hyperbolic manifolds.
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.