We prove that a necessary condition for the existence of the remaining problem in the harmonic Hopf construction is also sufficient. We also give some topological applications based on our result.
In this work, we study the stability of Hopf vector fields on Lorentzian Berger spheres as critical points of the energy, the volume and the generalized energy. In order to do so, we construct a family of vector fields using the simultaneous eigenfunctions of the Laplacian and of the vertical Laplacian of the sphere. The Hessians of the functionals are negative when they act on these particular vector fields and then Hopf vector fields are unstable. Moreover, we use this technique to study some of the open problems in the Riemannian case.
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.
Biharmonic maps are the critical points of the bienergy functional and, from this point of view, generalise harmonic maps. We consider the Hopf map $ψ:\s^3\to \s^2$ and modify it into a nonharmonic biharmonic map $ϕ:\s^3\to \s^3$. We show $ϕ$ to be unstable and estimate its biharmonic index and nullity. Resolving the spectrum of the vertical Laplacian associated to the Hopf map, we recover Urakawa's determination of its harmonic index and nullity.
Heinz Hopf's famous fibrations of the 2n+1-sphere by great circles, the 4n+3-sphere by great 3-spheres, and the 15-sphere by great 7-spheres have a number of interesting properties. Besides providing the first examples of homotopically nontrivial maps from one sphere to another sphere of lower dimension, they all share two striking features: (1) Their fibers are parallel, in the sense that any two fibers are a constant distance apart, and (2) The fibrations are highly symmetric. For example, there is a fiber-preserving isometry of each total space which takes any given fiber to any other one. …
In this paper we construct a new family of harmonic morphisms $φ:V^5\to\s^2$, where $V^5$ is a 5-dimensional open manifold contained in an ellipsoidal hypersurface of $\c^4=\r^8$. These harmonic morphisms admit a continuous extension to the completion ${V^{\ast}}^5$, which turns out to be an explicit real algebraic variety. We work in the context of a generalization of the Hopf construction and equivariant theory.
We prove a uniqueness theorem for immersed spheres of prescribed (non-constant) mean curvature in homogeneous three-manifolds. In particular, this uniqueness theorem proves a conjecture by A.D. Alexandrov about immersed spheres of prescribed Weingarten curvature in R3 for the special but important case of prescribed mean curvature. As a consequence, we extend the classical Hopf uniqueness theorem for constant mean curvature spheres to the case of immersed spheres of prescribed antipodally symmetric mean curvature in R3.
The stability of the 3-dimensional Hopf vector field, as a harmonic section of the unit tangent bundle, is viewed from a number of different angles. The spectrum of the vertical Jacobi operator is computed, and compared with that of the Jacobi operator of the identity map on the 3-sphere. The variational behaviour of the 3-dimensional Hopf vector field is compared and contrasted with that of the closely-related Hopf map. Finally, it is shown that the Hopf vector fields are the unique global minima of the energy functional restricted to unit vector fields on the 3-sphere.
We construct a family of Hermitian metrics on the Hopf surface $ \mathbb{S}^3\times \mathbb{S}^1$, whose fundamental classes represent distinct cohomology classes in the Aeppli cohomology group. These metrics are locally conformally Kähler. Among the toric fibres of $π:\mathbb{S}^{3} \times \mathbb{S}^1\to\mathbb{C} P^1$ two of them are stable minimal surfaces and each of the two has a neighbourhood so that fibres therein are given by stable harmonic maps from 2-torus and outside, far away from the two tori, there are unstable harmonic ones that are also unstable minimal surfaces.
Here we study geodesics connecting two given points on odd-dimensional spheres respecting the Hopf fibration. This geodesic boundary value problem is completely solved in the case of 3-dimensional sphere and some partial results are obtained in the general case. The Carnot-Carathéodory distance is calculated. We also present some motivations related to quantum mechanics.
We show, using two different approaches, that there exists a family of Riemannian metrics on the tangent bundle of a two-sphere, which induces metrics of constant curvature on its unit tangent bundle. In other words, given such a metric on the tangent bundle of a two-sphere, the Hopf map is identified with a Riemannian submersion from the universal covering space of the unit tangent bundle onto the two-sphere. A hyperbolic counterpart dealing with the tangent bundle of a hyperbolic plane is also presented.
We demonstrate that it is conceptually and computationally favorable to regard spin-weighted spherical harmonics as vector valued functions on the total space $SO(3)$ of the Hopf bundle, satisfying a covariance condition with respect to the gauge group $U(1)$ of this bundle. A key role is played by the invariant connection form of the principle Hopf bundle, known to physicists from the geometry behind magnetic monopoles.
In 1951, H. Hopf proved that the only surfaces, homeomorphic to the sphere, with constant mean curvature in the Euclidean space are the round (geometrical) spheres. These results were generalized by S. S. Chern, and then by Eschenburg and Tribuzy, for surfaces, homeomorphic to the sphere, in Riemannian manifolds with constant sectional curvature whose mean curvature function satisfies some bound on its differential. In this paper, using techniques partial differential equations in the complex plane which generalizes the notion of holomorphy, we extend these results for surfaces in a wide class…
In a previous paper, we showed that any Jacobi field along a harmonic map from the 2-sphere to the complex projective plane is integrable (i.e., is tangent to a smooth variation through harmonic maps). In this paper, in contrast, we show that there are (non-full) harmonic maps from the 2-sphere to the 3-sphere and 4-sphere which have non-integrable Jacobi fields. This is particularly surprising in the case of the 3-sphere where the space of harmonic maps of any degree is a smooth manifold, each map having image in a totally geodesic 2-sphere.
The spaces of harmonic maps of the projective plane to the four-dimensional sphere are investigated in this paper by means of twistor lifts. It is shown that such spaces are empty in case of even harmonic degree. In case of harmonic degree less than 6 it was shown that such spaces are path-connected and an explicit parameterization of the canonical representatives was found. In addition, the last section summarizes known results for harmonic maps of the two-dimensional sphere to the four-dimensional sphere of harmonic degree less than 6.
We study the growth of harmonic functions on complete Riemann-ian manifolds where the extrinsic diameter of geodesic spheres is sublinear. It is an generalization of a result of A. Kazue. We also get a Cheng and Yau estimates for the gradient of harmonic functions.
The Hopf theorem states that homotopy classes of continuous maps from a closed connected oriented smooth $n$-manifold $M$ to the $n$-sphere are classified by their degree. Such a map is equivalent to a section of the trivial $n$-sphere bundle over $M$. A generalization of the Hopf theorem is obtained for sections of nontrivial oriented $n$-sphere bundles over $M$.
We study the existence or not of harmonic diffeomorphisms between certain domains in the Euclidean 2-sphere. In particular, we show harmonic diffeomorphisms from circular domains in the complex plane onto finitely punctured spheres, with at least two punctures. This result follows from a general existence theorem for maximal graphs in the Lorentzian product $M\times\mathbb{R}_1,$ where $M$ is an arbitrary $n$-dimensional compact Riemannian manifold, $n\geq 2.$ In contrast, we show that there is no harmonic diffeomorphism from the unit complex disc onto the once punctured sphere and no harmonic…
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 study k-harmonic immersion into a sphere, and get the rerationship between radious and "k" of k-harmonic. And we also consider k-harmonic submersion, and genelarize Oniciuc's results. Futhermore we construct non harmonic k-harmonic by Hopf map.
Making use of Murakami's classification of outer involutions in a Lie algebra and following the Morse-theoretic approach to harmonic two-spheres in Lie groups introduced by Burstall and Guest, we obtain a new classification of harmonic two-spheres in outer symmetric spaces and a Weierstrass-type representation for such maps. Several examples of harmonic maps into classical outer symmetric spaces are given in terms of meromorphic functions on $S^2$.
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.
Polyharmonic, or $r$-harmonic, maps are a natural generalization of harmonic maps whose study was proposed by Eells-Lemaire in 1983. The main aim of this paper is to construct new examples of proper $r$-harmonic immersions into spheres. In particular, we shall prove that the canonical inclusion $i: S^{n-1}(R)\to S^n$ is a proper $r$-harmonic submanifold of $S^n$ if and only if the radius $R$ is equal to $1/ \sqrt{r}$. We shall also prove the existence of proper $r$-harmonic generalized Clifford's tori into the sphere.
We prove that any uniformly elliptic Weingarten (topological) sphere in S2xR must be congruent to the canonical example associated to the Weingarten equation. The result is obtained by proving that rotational uniformly elliptic Weingarten surfaces in S2xR have bounded second fundamental form together with a Hopf type result by J. A. Gálvez and P. Mira.
It is proved some results about existence and non existence of unit normal sections of submanifolds of the Euclidean space and sphere which associated Gauss maps are harmonic. Some applications to CMC hypersurfaces of the sphere and isoparametric submanifolds are obtained too.
In this work, we study helix spacelike and timelike surfaces in the Lorentzian Berger sphere $\s_{\varepsilon}^3$, that is the three-dimensional sphere endowed with a $1$-parameter family of Lorentzian metrics, obtained by deforming the round metric on $\s^3$ along the fibers of the Hopf fibration $\s^3\to \s^2({1}/{2})$ by $-\varepsilon^2$. Our main result provides a characterization of the helix surfaces in $\s_{\varepsilon}^3$ using the symmetries of the ambient space and a general helix in $\s_{\varepsilon}^3$, with axis the infinitesimal generator of the Hopf fibers. Also, we construct so…
We show that any compact surface of genus zero in Euclidean 3-space that satisfies a quasiconformal inequality between its principal curvatures is a round sphere. This solves an old open problem by H. Hopf, and gives a spherical version of Simon's quasiconformal Bernstein theorem. The result generalizes, among others, Hopf's theorem for constant mean curvature spheres, the classification of round spheres as the only compact elliptic Weingarten surfaces of genus zero, and the uniqueness theorem for ovaloids by Han, Nadirashvili and Yuan. The proof relies on the Bers-Nirenberg representation of …
A famous conjecture of Hopf is that the product of the two-dimensional sphere with itself does not admit a Riemannian metric with positive sectional curvature. More generally, one may conjecture that this holds for any nontrivial product. We provide evidence for this generalized conjecture in the presence of symmetry.
We obtain the explicit representation of Legendre surfaces in the unit $5$-sphere with harmonic mean curvature vector field, under the condition that the mean curvature function is constant along a certain special direction.
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.
We show that the set of harmonic maps from the 2-dimensional stratified spheres with uniformly bounded energies contains only finitely many homotopy classes. We apply this result to construct infinitely many harmonic map flows and mean curvature flows of 2-sphere in the connected sum of two closed 3-dimensional manifolds $M_1\not=S^3$ and $M_2\not=S^3,\R¶^3$, which must develop finite time singularity.
We study a class of exceptional minimal surfaces in spheres for which all Hopf differentials are holomorphic. Extending results of Eschenburg and Tribuzy \cite{ET0}, we obtain a description of exceptional surfaces in terms of a set of absolute value type functions, the $a$-invariants, that determine the geometry of the higher order curvature ellipses and satisfy certain Ricci-type conditions. We show that the $a$-invariants determine these surfaces up to a multiparameter family of isometric minimal deformations, where the number of the parameters is precisely the number of non-vanishing Hopf d…
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…
This paper aims to provide a description of totally isotropic Willmore two-spheres and their adjoint transforms. We first recall the isotropic harmonic maps which are introduced by Hélein, Xia-Shen and Ma for the study of Willmore surfaces. Then we derive a description of the normalized potential (some Lie algebra valued meromorphic 1-forms) of totally isotropic Willmore two-spheres in terms of the isotropic harmonic maps. In particular, the corresponding isotropic harmonic maps are of finite uniton type. The proof also contains a concrete way to construct examples of totally isotropic Willmor…
We give a complete classification of Riemannian and Lorentzian surfaces of arbitrary codimension in a pseudo-sphere whose pseudo-spherical Gauss maps are of 1-type or, in particular, harmonic. In some cases a concrete global classification is obtained, while in other cases the solutions are described by an explicit system of partial differential equations.
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…
This article studies the harmonicity of vector fields on Riemannian manifolds, viewed as maps into the tangent bundle equipped with a family of Riemannian metrics. Geometric and topological rigidity conditions are obtained, especially for surfaces and vector fields of constant norm, and existence is proved on two-tori. Classifications are given for conformal, quadratic and Killing vector fields on spheres. Finally, the class of metric considered on the tangent bundle is enlarged, permitting new vector fields to become harmonic.
Let $S$ be a surface with a metric $d$ satisfying an upper curvature bound in the sense of Alexandrov (i.e. via triangle comparison). We show that an almost conformal harmonic map from a surface into $(S,d)$ is a branched covering. As a consequence, if $(S,d)$ is homeomorphically equivalent to the 2-sphere $\mathbb S^2$, then it is conformally equivalent to $\mathbb S^2$.
We present an explicit description of all harmonic maps of finite uniton number from a Riemann surface into a complex Grassmannian. Namely, starting from a constant map $Q$ and a collection of meromorphic functions and their derivatives, we show how to algebraically construct all harmonic maps from the two-sphere into a given Grassmannian $G_p(\mathbb C^n)$. In this setting the uniton number depends on $Q$ and $p$ and we obtain a sharp estimate for it.
We prove that the Hopf vector field is a unique one among geodesic covariantly normal unit vector fields on spheres such that the submanifold generated by the field is totally geodesic in the unit tangent bundle with Sasaki metric. As application, we give a new proof of stability (instability) of the Hopf vector field with respect to volume variation using standard approach from the theory of submanifolds and find exact boundaries for the sectional curvature of the Hopf vector field.
We obtain the parametric equations of all biharmonic Legendre curves and Hopf cylinders in the 3-dimensional unit sphere endowed with the modified Sasakian structure defined by Tanno.
For an arbitrary Dirac-harmonic map $(ϕ,ψ)$ between compact oriented Riemannian surfaces, we shall study the zeros of $|ψ|$. With the aid of Bochner-type formulas, we explore the relationship between the order of the zeros of $|ψ|$ and the genus of $M$ and $N$. On the basis, we could clarify all of nontrivial Dirac-harmonic maps from $S^2$ to $S^2$.
The absence of interesting harmonic sections for the Sasaki and Cheeger-Gromoll metrics has led to the consideration of alternatives, for example in the form of a two-parameter family of natural metrics shown to relax existence conditions for harmonicity. This article investigates harmonic Killing vector fields, proves their non-existence on S^2, obtains rigidity results for harmonic gradient vector fields on the two-sphere, classifies spherical quadratic gradient fields in all dimensions and determines the tension field, concluding with the discovery of a family of metrics making Hopf vector …
We consider the energy functional on the space of sections of a sphere bundle over a Riemannian manifold (M, <,>) equipped with the Sasaki metric and we discuss the characterising condition for critical points. Likewise, we provide a useful method for computing the tension field in some particular situations. Such a method is shown to be adequate for many tensor fields defined on manifolds M equipped with a G-structure compatible with <,>. This leads to the construction of a lot of new examples of differential forms which are harmonic sections or determine a harmonic map from (M,<,>) into its …
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…
A fibration of a Riemannian manifold is fiberwise homogeneous if there are isometries of the manifold onto itself, taking any given fiber to any other one, and preserving fibers. Examples are fibrations of Euclidean n-space by parallel n-planes, and the Hopf fibrations of the round n-sphere by great n-spheres. In this paper, we describe all the fiberwise homogeneous fibrations of Euclidean and hyperbolic 3-space by geodesics. Our main result is that, up to fiber-preserving isometries, there is precisely a one-parameter family of such fibrations of Euclidean 3-space, and a two-parameter family …
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 show that any Jacobi field along a harmonic map from the 2-sphere to the complex projective plane is integrable (i.e., is tangent to a smooth variation through harmonic maps). This provides one of the few known answers to this problem of integrability, which was raised in different contexts of geometry and analysis. It implies that the Jacobi fields form the tangent bundle to each component of the manifold of harmonic maps from $S^2$ to ${\bf C}P^2$ thus giving the nullity of any such harmonic map; it also has bearing on the behaviour of weakly harmonic $E$-minimizing maps from a 3-manifold…
In the 1950's Hopf gave examples of non-round convex 2-spheres in Euclidean 3-space with rotational symmetry that satisfy a linear relationship between their principal curvatures. In this paper we investigate conditions under which evolving a smooth rotationally symmetric sphere by a linear combination of its radii of curvature yields a Hopf sphere. When the coefficients of the flow have certain integer values, the fate of an initial sphere is entirely determined by the local geometry of its isolated umbilic points. A surprising variety of behaviours is uncovered: convergence to round spheres …
We give multiplicity results for the problem of prescribing the scalar curvature on Cauchy- Riemann spheres under Beta-flatness condition. To give a lower bound for the number of solutions, we use Bahri methods based on the theory of critical points at infinity and a Poincare-Hopf type formula.
We give a classification of quadratic harmonic morphisms between Euclidean spaces (Theorem 2.4) after proving a Rank Lemma. We also find a correspondence between umbilical (Definition 2.7) quadratic harmonic morphisms and Clifford systems. In the case $ {\Bbb R}^{4}\longrightarrow {\Bbb R}^{3} $, we determine all quadratic harmonic morphisms and show that, up to a constant factor, they are all bi-equivalent (Definition 3.2) to the well-known Hopf construction map and induce harmonic morphisms bi-equivalent to the Hopf fibration ${\Bbb S}^{3} \longrightarrow {\Bbb S}^{2}$.