The energy of harmonic sections of flat bundles of nonpositively curved (NPC) length spaces over a Riemann surface $S$ is a function $E_ρ$ on Teichmüller space $\Teich$ which is a qualitative invariant of the holonomy representation $ρ$ of $π_1(S)$. Adapting ideas of Sacks-Uhlenbeck, Schoen-Yau and Tromba, we show that the energy function $E_ρ$ is proper for any convex cocompact representation of the fundamental group. More generally, if $ρ$ is a discrete embedding onto a normal subgroup of a convex cocompact group $Γ$, then $E_ρ$ defines a proper function on the quotient $\Teich/Q$ where $Q$ is the subgroup of the mapping class group defined by $Γ/ρ(π_1(S))$. When the image of $ρ$ contains parabolic elements, then $E_ρ$ is not proper. Using the recent solution of Marden's Tameness Conjecture, we show that if $ρ$ is a discrete embedding into $\SLtC$, then $E_ρ$ is proper if and only if $ρ$ is quasi-Fuchsian. These results are used to prove that the mapping class group acts properly on the subset of convex cocompact representations.
This note is to concern a generalization to the case of twisted coefficients of the classical theory of Abelian differentials on a compact Riemann surface. We apply the Dirichlet's principle to a modified energy functional to show the existence of differentials with twisted coefficients of the second and third kinds under a suitable assumption on residues.
We prove that the higher harmonic signature of an even dimensional oriented Riemannian foliation of a compact Riemannian manifold with coefficients in a leafwise U(p,q)-flat complex bundle is a leafwise homotopy invariant. We also prove the leafwise homotopy invariance of the twisted higher Betti classes. Consequences for the Novikov conjecture for foliations and for groups are investigated. Replaces The Higher Harmonic Signature for Foliations I: The Untwisted Case, and contains significant improvements.
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.
We apply the method of eigenfamilies to construct new explicit complex-valued p-harmonic functions on the non-compact classical Lie groups, equipped with their natural semi-Riemannian metrics. We then employ this same approach to manufacture explicit complex-valued harmonic morphisms on these groups.
We consider Dirac operators on odd-dimensional compact spin manifolds which are twisted by a product bundle. We show that the space of connections on the twisting bundle which yield an invertible operator has infinitely many connected components if the untwisted Dirac operator is invertible and the dimension of the twisting bundle is sufficiently large.
In this paper, we consider critical maps of a horizontal energy functional for maps from a sub-Riemannian manifold to a Riemannian manifold. These critical maps are referred to as subelliptic harmonic maps. In terms of the subelliptic harmonic map heat flow, we investigate the existence problem for subelliptic harmonic maps. Under the assumption that the target Riemannian manifold has non-positive sectional curvature, we prove some Eells-Sampson type existence results for this flow when the source manifold is either a step-2 sub-Riemannian manifold or a step-r sub-Riemannian manifold whose sub…
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 describe the ordinary differential equations of $3$-harmonic curves into a Riemannian manifold with constant sectional curvature, and show biharmonic curve is k-harmonic curve $(k\geq 2)$.
In this paper, we show that every harmonic map from a compact Kähler manifold with uniformly RC-positive curvature to a Riemannian manifold with non-positive complex sectional curvature is constant. In particular, there is no non-constant harmonic map from a compact Kähler manifold with positive holomorphic sectional curvature to a Riemannian manifold with non-positive complex sectional curvature.
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.
We classify biharmonic and harmonic homomorphisms $f:(G,g_1)\rightarrow(G,g_2)$ where $G$ is a connected and simply connected three-dimensional unimodular Lie group and $g_1$ and $g_2$ are left invariant Riemannian metrics.
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.
Given two Riemannian manifolds $(B,g_B)$ and $(F,g_F)$, we give harmonicity conditions for vector fields on the Riemannian warped product $B\times_fF$, with $f:B \longrightarrow ]0,+\infty[$, using a characteristic variational condition. Then, we apply this to the case $B=\mathbb{R}$ and $F$ is a three-dimensional connected Riemannian Lie group $G$ equipped with a left-invariant metric, to determine harmonic vector fields on $\mathbb{R}\times_fG$. We give examples of harmonic vector fields on $G$ which are not left-invariant and determine harmonic vector fields on $\mathbb{R}\times_fG$. We con…
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.
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 introduce a new method for constructing complex-valued $r$-harmonic functions on Riemannian manifolds. We then apply this method for the important semisimple Lie groups $SO(n)$, $SU(n)$, $Sp(n)$, $SL_n(R)$, $Sp(R,n)$, $SU(p,q)$, $SO(p,q)$, $Sp(p,q)$, $SO^*(2n)$ and $SU^*(2n)$.
In this paper, we discuss the heat flow of a pseudo-harmonic map from a closed pseudo-Hermitian manifold to a Riemannian manifold with non-positive sectional curvature, and prove the existence of the pseudo-harmonic map which is a generalization of Eells-Sampson's existence theorem. We also discuss the uniqueness of the pseudo-harmonic representative of its homotopy class which is a generalization of Hartman theorem, provided that the target manifold has negative sectional curvature.
We show that any left invariant metric with harmonic curvature on a solvable Lie group is Ricci-parallel. We show the same result for any Lie group of dimension $\leq$ 6.
In this paper, we give a complete classification of harmonic and biharmonic Riemannian submersions $π:(R^3,g_{Sol})\to (N^2,h)$ from Sol space into a surface by proving that there is neither harmonic nor biharmonic Riemannian submersion $π:(R^3,g_{Sol})\to (N^2,h)$ from Sol space no matter what the base space $(N^2,h)$ is. We also prove that a Riemannian submersion $π:(R,g_{Sol})\to (N^2,h)$ from Sol space exists only when the base space is a hyperbolic space form.
We consider harmonic maps into pseudo-Riemannian manifolds. We show the removability of isolated singularities for continuous maps, i.e. that any continuous map from an open subset of R^m into a pseudo-Riemannian manifold which is two times continuously differentiable and harmonic everywhere outside an isolated point is actually smooth harmonic everywhere.
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.
In this work we construct explicit complex-valued p-harmonic functions on the compact Riemannian symmetric spaces SU(n)/SO(n), Sp(n)/U(n), SO(2n)/U(n), SU(2n)/Sp(n). We also describe how the same can be manufactured on their non-compact symmetric dual spaces.
Certain solvable extensions of $H$-type groups provide noncompact counterexamples to the so-called Lichnerowicz conjecture, which asserted that ``harmonic'' Riemannian spaces must be rank 1 symmetric spaces.
We show the smoothness of weakly Dirac-harmonic maps from a closed spin Riemann surface into stationary Lorentzian manifolds, and obtain a regularity theorem for a class of critical elliptic systems without anti-symmetry structures.
In the previous paper [GLM2018], we showed that the theory of harmonic maps between Riemannian manifolds may be discretized by introducing triangulations with vertex and edge weights on the domain manifold. In the present paper, we study convergence of the discrete theory to the smooth theory when taking finer and finer triangulations. We present suitable conditions on the weighted triangulations that ensure convergence of discrete harmonic maps to smooth harmonic maps. Our computer software Harmony implements these methods to computes equivariant harmonic maps in the hyperbolic plane.
Characterizations for Riemannian submersions to be harmonic or biharmonic are shown. Examples of biharmonic but not harmonic Riemannian submersions are shown.
For positive $p$-harmonic functions on Riemannian manifolds, we derive a gradient estimate and Harnack inequality with constants depending only on the lower bound of the Ricci curvature, the dimension $n$, $p$ and the radius of the ball on which the function is defined. Our approach is based on a careful application of the Moser iteration technique and is different from Cheng-Yau's method employed by Kostchwar and Ni, in which a gradient estimate for positive $p$-harmonic functions is derived under the assumption that the sectional curvature is bounded from below.
We study harmonic maps from degenerating Riemann surfaces with uniformly bounded energy and show the so-called generalized energy identity. We find conditions that are both necessary and sufficient for the compactness in $W^{1,2}$ and $C^{0}$ modulo bubbles of sequences of such maps.
We investigate the structure of a harmonic morphism $F$ from a Riemannian 4-manifold M^4 to a 2-surface $N^2$ near a critical point $m_0$. If $m_0$ is an isolated critical point or if $M^4$ is compact without boundary, we show that $F$ is pseudo-holomorphic w.r.t. an almost Hermitian structure defined in a neighbourhood of $m_0$. If $M^4$ is compact without boundary, the singular fibres of $F$ are branched minimal surfaces.
We extend the well-known Sacks-Uhlenbeck energy gap result (1981) for harmonic maps from closed Riemann surfaces into closed Riemannian manifolds from the case of maps with small energy (thus near a constant map), to the case of harmonic maps with high absolute energy but small energy relative to a reference harmonic map.
We first prove stochastic representation formulae for space-time harmonic mappings defined on manifolds with evolving Riemannian metric. We then apply these formulae to derive Liouville type theorems under appropriate curvature conditions. Space-time harmonic mappings which are defined globally in time correspond to ancient solutions to the harmonic map heat flow. As corollaries, we establish triviality of such ancient solutions in a variety of different situations.
Let $Σ$ be a compact Riemann surface and $D_1,...,D_n$ a finite number of pairwise disjoint closed disks of $Σ$. We prove the existence of a proper harmonic map into the Euclidean plane from a hyperbolic domain $Ω$ containing $Σ\backslash\cup_{j=1}^n D_j$ and of its topological type. Here, $Ω$ can be chosen as close as necessary to $Σ\backslash\cup_{j=1}^n D_j$. In particular, we obtain proper harmonic maps from the unit disk into the Euclidean plane, which disproves a conjecture posed by R. Schoen and S.T. Yau.
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 paper, we introduce a Liouville action for a harmonic diffeomorphism from a compact Riemann surface to a compact hyperbolic Riemann surface of genus $g\ge 2$. We derive the variational formula of this Liouville action for harmonic diffeomorphisms when the source Riemann surfaces vary with a fixed target Riemann surface.
The variational theory of higher-power energy is developed for mappings between Riemannian manifolds, and more generally sections of submersions of Riemannian manifolds, and applied to sections of Riemannian vector bundles and their sphere subbundles. A complete classification is then given for left-invariant vector fields on 3-dimensional unimodular Lie groups equipped with an arbitrary left-invariant Riemannian metric.
$\infty$-Harmonic maps are a generalization of $\infty$-harmonic functions. They can be viewed as the limiting cases of p-harmonic maps as p goes to infinity. In this paper, we give complete classifications of linear and quadratic $\infty$-harmonic maps from and into a sphere, quadratic $\infty$-harmonic maps between Euclidean spaces. We describe all linear and quadratic $\infty$-harmonic maps between Nil and Euclidean spaces, between Sol and Euclidean spaces. We also study holomorphic $\infty$-harmonic maps between complex Euclidean spaces.
We consider weakly and strongly asymptotically mean value harmonic (amv-harmonic) functions on subriemannian and RCD settings. We demonstrate that, in non-collapsed RCD-spaces with vanishing metric measure boundary, Cheeger harmonic functions are weakly amv-harmonic and that, in Carnot groups, weak amv-harmonicity equivalently characterizes harmonicity in the sense of the sub-Laplacian. In homogeneous Carnot groups of step $2$, we prove a Blaschke-Privaloff-Zaremba type theorem. Similar results are discussed in the settings of Riemannian manifolds and for Alexandrov surfaces.
If the Killing vector field in a Riemannian manifold is the gradient of a smooth real valued function, then it is called Killing potential. In this paper we have deduced a necessary condition for the existence of Killing potential in a complete Riemannian manifold. Yau proved the Liouville theorem of harmonic function in a Riemannian manifold using gradient estimation and after that many authors have generalized this concept and investigated various types of Liouville theorems of harmonic functions. In this article we have also proved a Liouville theorem in integral form of harmonic functions …
We show that for a suitable class of ``Dirac-like'' operators there holds a Gluing Theorem for connected sums. More precisely, if $M_1$ and $M_2$ are closed Riemannian manifolds of dimension $n\ge 3$ together with such operators, then the connected sum $M_1 # M_2$ can be given a Riemannian metric such that the spectrum of its associated operator is close to the disjoint union of the spectra of the two original operators. As an application, we show that in dimension $n\equiv 3$ mod 4 harmonic spinors for the Dirac operator of a spin, $\Spinc$, or $\Spinh$ manifold are not topologically obstruct…
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…
In this paper, we give an estimate of sub-Laplacian of Riemannian distance functions in pseudo-Hermitian geometry which plays a similar role as Laplacian comparison theorem in Riemannian geometry, and deduce a prior horizontal gradient estimate of pseudo-harmonic maps from pseudo-Hermitian manifolds to regular balls of Riemannian manifolds. As an application, Liouville theorem is established under the conditions of nonnegative pseudo-Hermitian Ricci curvature and vanishing pseudo-Hermitian torsion. Moreover, we obtain the existence of pseudo-harmonic maps from complete noncompact pseudo-Hermit…
We construct a parabolic entire minimal graph $S$ over a finite topology complete Riemannian surface $Σ$ of curvature $-1$ and infinite area (thus of non-parabolic conformal type). The vertical projection of this graph yields a harmonic diffeomorphism from $S$ onto $Σ$. The proof uses the theory of divergence lines to construct minimal graphs. We also generalize a theorem of R. Schoen. Let $g_1$ and $g_2$ be two complete metrics on a orientable surface $S$ with compact boundary and suppose $$\int_{S_r^2}K_{g_2}^-dσ_{g_2}\le C\ln(2+r)$$ for some $C>0$ and all $r>0$. If there is a harmonic diffe…
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…
In this paper, we study the existence of various harmonic maps from Hermitian manifolds to Kaehler, Hermitian and Riemannian manifolds respectively. By using refined Bochner formulas on Hermitian (possibly non-Kaehler) manifolds, we derive new rigidity results on Hermitian harmonic maps from compact Hermitian manifolds to Riemannian manifolds, and we also obtain the complex analyticity of pluri-harmonic maps from compact complex manifolds to compact Kaehler manifolds (and Riemannian manifolds) with non-degenerate curvatures, which are analogous to several fundamental results in [28,Siu], [14,J…
Let $(M,H,g_H;g)$ be a sub-Riemannian manifold and $(N,h)$ be a Riemannian manifold. For a smooth map $u: M \to N$, we consider the energy functional $E_G(u) = \frac{1}{2} \int_M[|\mathrm{d}u_H|^2-2G(u)] \mathrm{d}V_M$, where $\mathrm{d}u_H$ is the horizontal differential of $u$, $G:N\to \mathbb{R}$ is a smooth function on $N$. The critical maps of $E_G(u)$ are referred to as subelliptic harmonic maps with potential $G$. In this paper, we investigate the existence problem for subelliptic harmonic maps with potentials by a subelliptic heat flow. Assuming that the target Riemannian manifold has …
Motivated from the action functional for bosonic strings with extrinsic curvature term we introduce an action functional for maps between Riemannian manifolds that interpolates between the actions for harmonic and biharmonic maps. Critical points of this functional will be called interpolating sesqui-harmonic maps. In this article we initiate a rigorous mathematical treatment of this functional and study various basic aspects of its critical points.
An explicit lower bound for the mass of an asymptotically flat Riemannian 3-manifold is given in terms of linear growth harmonic functions and scalar curvature. As a consequence, a new proof of the positive mass theorem is achieved in dimension three. The proof has parallels with both the Schoen-Yau minimal hypersurface technique and Witten's spinorial approach. In particular, the role of harmonic spinors and the Lichnerowicz formula in Witten's argument is replaced by that of harmonic functions and a formula introduced by the fourth named author in recent work, while the level sets of harmoni…
