Harmonic maps between surfaces (with a special chapter on conformal mappings) (Q795393)

The primary objective of this excellent monograph is to give a detailed account of what is known at present about harmonic maps between surfaces and to give a fairly self-contained introduction to the general harmonic map theory. Among the topics treated in the first part of the book, the author gives a detailed proof of the classical Morrey's theorem on conformal maps, solves the Dirichlet problem for boundary values lying in a convex ball [\textit{H. Kaul}, \textit{S. Hildebrandt} and \textit{K. Widman}, Acta Math. 138, 1-16 (1977 Zbl 0356.53015)] and presents a new proof of Lemaire's existence theorem as well as the uniqueness theorems for harmonic maps due to Hartman and Jäger-Kaul. The rest of the book is mainly devoted to \(C^{1,\alpha}\)-a-priori estimates yielding e.g. existence of harmonic diffeomorphisms (as solutions of the Dirichlet problem). Harmonic coordinates due to Jost-Karcher are introduced to prove \(C^{2,\alpha}\)-a-priori estimates for harmonic maps between surfaces; these are then exploited to prove existence of harmonic diffeomorphisms between closed surfaces [the author and \textit{R. Schoen}, Inv. Math. 66, 353-359 (1982; Zbl 0488.58009)]. Finally, the author presents Eells-Wood's analytic proof of a result of Kneser on mappings between closed surfaces together with some applications of harmonic maps to Teichmüller theory.