We explain how to apply techniques from integrable systems to construct $2k$-soliton homoclinic wave maps from the periodic Minkowski space $S^1\times R^1$ to a compact Lie group, and more generally to a compact symmetric space. We give a correspondence between solutions of the -1 flow equation associated to a compact Lie group $G$ and wave maps into $G$. We use Bäcklund transformations to construct explicit $2k$-soliton breather solutions for the -1 flow equation and show that the corresponding wave maps are periodic and homoclinic. The compact symmetric space $G/K$ can be embedded as a totally geodesic submanifold of $G$ via the Cartan embedding. We prescribe the constraint condition for the -1 flow equation associated to $G$ which insures that the corresponding wave map into $G$ actually lies in $G/K$. For example, when $G/K=SU(2)/SO(2)=S^2$, the constrained -1-flow equation associated to SU(2) has the sine-Gordon equation (SGE) as a subequation and classical breather solutions of the SGE are 2-soliton breathers. Thus our result generalizes the result of Shatah and Strauss that a classical breather solution of the SGE gives rise to a periodic homoclinic wave map to $S^2$. When the group $G$ is non-compact, the bi-invariant metric on $G$ is pseudo-Riemannian and Bäcklund transformations of a smooth solution often are singular. We use Bäcklund transformations to show that there exist smooth initial data with constant boundary conditions and finite energy such that the Cauchy problem for wave maps from $R^{1,1}$ to the pseudo-Riemannian manifold $SL(2,R)$ develops singularities in finite time.
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.
For any n>1 we give an explicit example of an n-axially symmetric Cartesian current in B^3 x S^2 with non-trivial vertical part and non-constant graph part minimizing the relaxed Dirichlet energy among the n-axially symmetric Cartesian currents with the same boundary. This stands in sharp contrast with a results of Hardt, Lin and Poon for the case n=1.
We prove that a quasiisometric map between rank one symmetric spaces is within bounded distance from a unique harmonic map. In particular, this completes the proof of the Schoen-Li-Wang conjecture.
In this paper, the description of biharmonic map equation in terms of the Maurer-Cartan form for all smooth map of a compact Riemannian manifold into a Riemannian symmetric space $(G/K,h)$ induced from the bi-invariant Riemannian metric $h$ on $G$ is obtained. By this formula, all biharmonic curves into symmetric spaces are determined, and all the biharmonic maps of an open domain of ${\Bbb R}^2$ with the standard Riemannian metric into $(G/K,h)$ are determined.
In this paper, we establish the rigidity result for local holomorphic volume preserving maps from an irreducible Hermitian manifold of compact type into its Cartesian products.
The Grassmannian model represents harmonic maps from Riemann surfaces by families of shift-invariant subspaces of a Hilbert space. We impose a natural symmetry condition on the shift-invariant subspaces that corresponds to considering an important class of harmonic maps into symmetric and $k$-symmetric spaces. In particular, we obtain new general forms for such symmetric shift-invariant subspaces and for the corresponding extended solutions.
In this paper, we develop a loop group description of harmonic maps $\mathcal{F}: M \rightarrow G/K$ ``of finite uniton type", from a Riemann surface $M$ into inner symmetric spaces of compact or non-compact type. This develops work of Uhlenbeck, Segal, and Burstall-Guest to non-compact inner symmetric spaces. To be more concrete, we prove that every harmonic map of finite uniton type from any Riemann surface into any compact or non-compact inner symmetric space has a normalized potential taking values in some nilpotent Lie subalgebra, as well as a normalized frame with initial condition ident…
We show that a harmonic map from a Riemann surface into the exceptional symmetric space $G_2/{\mathrm SO}(4)$ has a $J_2$-holomorphic twistor lift into one of the three flag manifolds of $G_2$ if and only if it is `nilconformal', i.e., has nilpotent derivative. Then we find relationships with almost complex maps from a surface into the 6-sphere; this enables us to construct examples of nilconformal harmonic maps into $G_2/{\mathrm SO}(4)$ which are not of finite uniton number, and which have lifts into any of the three twistor spaces. Harmonic maps of finite uniton number are all nilconformal;…
We study proper holomorphic maps between bounded symmetric domains $D$ and $Ω$. In particular, when $D$ and $Ω$ are of the same rank $\ge 2$ such that all irreducible factors of $D$ are of rank $\ge 2$, we prove that any proper holomorphic map from $D$ to $Ω$ is a totally geodesic holomorphic isometric embedding with respect to certain canonical Kähler metrics of $D$ and $Ω$. We also obtain some results regarding holomorphic maps $F:D\to Ω$ which map minimal disks of $D$ properly into rank-$1$ characteristic symmetric subspaces of $Ω$. On the other hand, we obtain new rigidity results regardin…
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.
After establishing the uniqueness of the continuation of local Cauchy data for harmonic maps between two Riemannian manifolds M and N, we prove (i) a reflection principle for a smooth minimal submanifold Y of a Riemannian manifold M that contains a reflective submanifold of M as a hypersurface and (ii) the reflection principle of for a class of smooth harmonic maps between Riemannian manifolds that admit reflective submanifolds. A reflection principle for harmonic functions on M with respect to a reflective hypersurface of M follows easily from the above reflection principle. To consider refle…
After giving the most general formulation to date of the notion of integrability for axially symmetric harmonic maps from R^3 into symmetric spaces, we give a complete and rigorous proof that, subject to some mild restrictions on the target, all such maps are integrable. Furthermore, we prove that a variant of the inverse scattering method, called vesture (dressing) can always be used to generate new solutions for the harmonic map equations starting from any given solution. In particular we show that the problem of finding N-solitonic harmonic maps into a noncompact Grassmann manifold SU(p,q)/…
Let $D, Ω_1, ..., Ω_m$ be irreducible bounded symmetric domains. We study local holomorphic maps from $D$ into $Ω_1 \times... Ω_m$ preserving the invariant $(p, p)$-forms induced from the normalized Bergman metrics up to conformal constants. We show that the local holomorphic maps extends to algebraic maps in the rank one case for any $p$ and in the rank at least two case for certain sufficiently large $p$. The total geodesy thus follows if $D=\mathbb{B}^n, Ω_i = \mathbb{B}^{N_i}$ for any $p$ or if $D=Ω_1 =...=Ω_m$ with rank$(D)\geq 2$ and $p$ sufficiently large. As a consequence, the algebrai…
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 …
In this paper we provide examples of maps from almost complex domains into pseudo-Riemannian symmetric targets, which are pluriharmonic and not integrable, i.e. do not admit an associated family. More precisely, for one class of examples the source has a non-integrable complex structure, like for instance a nearly Kaehler structure and the target is a Riemannian symmetric space and for the other class the source is a complex manifold and the target is a pseudo-Riemannian symmetric space. These examples show, that a former result on the existence of associated families is sharp.
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 define a Toledo number for actions of surface groups and complex hyperbolic lattices on infinite dimensional Hermitian symmetric spaces, which allows us to define maximal representations. When the target is not of tube type we show that there cannot be Zariski-dense maximal representations, and whenever the existence of a boundary map can be guaranteed, the representation preserves a finite dimensional totally geodesic subspace on which the action is maximal. In the opposite direction we construct examples of geometrically dense maximal representation in the infinite dimensional Hermitian s…
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 are studying a relationship between isoparametric hypersurfaces in spheres with four distinct principal curvatures and the moment maps of certain Hamiltonian actions. In this paper, we consider the isoparametric hypersurfaces obtained from the isotropy representations of compact irreducible Hermitian symmetric spaces of rank two. We prove that the Cartan-Münzner polynomials of these hypersurfaces can be written as squared-norms of the moment maps for some Hamiltonian actions. The proof is based on the structure theory of symmetric spaces.
We study proper holomorphic maps between type-$\mathrm{I}$ irreducible bounded symmetric domains. In particular, we obtain rigidity results for such maps under certain assumptions. More precisely, let $f:D^{\mathrm{I}}_{p,q}\to D^{\mathrm{I}}_{p',q'}$ be a proper holomorphic map, where $p\ge q\ge 2$ and $q'<\min\{2q-1,p\}$. Then, we show that $p'\ge p$ and $q'\ge q$. Moreover, we prove that there exist automorphisms $ψ$ and $Φ$ of $D^{\mathrm{I}}_{p,q}$ and $D^{\mathrm{I}}_{p',q'}$ respectively, such that $f=Φ\circ G_h\circ ψ$ for some map $G_h:D^{\mathrm{I}}_{p,q}\to D^{\mathrm{I}}_{p',q'}$ d…
Tight maps was introduced along tight homomorphisms by Burger, Iozzi and Wienhard with aims towards maximal representations. In this paper we classify tight maps into classical Hermitian symmetric spaces and give a partial result for the exceptional spaces.
We show that given a harmonic map $φ$ from a Riemann surface to a classical compact simply connected inner symmetric space, there is a $J_2$-holomorphic twistor lift of $φ$ (or its negative) if and only if it is nilconformal. In the case of harmonic maps of finite uniton number, we give algebraic formulae in terms of holomorphic data which describes their extended solutions. In particular, this gives explicit formulae for the twistor lifts of all harmonic maps of finite uniton number from a surface to the above symmetric spaces.
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…
This paper concerns a study of three families of non-compact type symmetric spaces of infinite dimension. Although they have infinite dimension they have finite rank. More precisely, we show they have finite telescopic dimension. We also show the existence of Furstenberg maps for some group actions on these spaces. Such maps appear as a first step toward superrigidity results.
We prove the global existence of Dirac-wave maps with curvature term with small initial data on globally hyperbolic manifolds of arbitrary dimension which satisfy a suitable growth condition. In addition, we also prove a global existence result for wave maps under similar assumptions.
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.
