Convergence of harmonic maps (Q254292)

The paper deals with the behavior of harmonic maps under convergence. Namely, the author considers the set \({\mathcal M}(n,D)\) of all compact Riemannian manifolds \((M, g)\) such that \(\dim(M) = n\), \(\mathrm{diam}(M) < D\), and the sectional curvature \(\mathrm{sec}_g\) satisfies \(| \mathrm{sec}_g| \leq 1\), equipped with the measured Gromov-Hausdorff topology. The author discusses under which circumstances a sequence of harmonic maps defined on a converging sequence of Riemannian manifolds in \({\mathcal M}(n,D)\) converges to a harmonic map. The following compactness theorem is proved: Theorem. Let \((M_i , g_i )\) be a sequence of smooth Riemannian manifolds in \({\mathcal M}(n,D)\) which converges to a metric measure space \((X, g, \Phi \mu_g)\) in the measured Gromov-Hausdorff topology. Suppose \((N, h)\) is a compact Riemannian manifold. Let \(f_i : (M_i , g_i ) \to (N, h)\) be a sequence of harmonic maps such that \( \| e_{g_i} ( f_i ) \|_{L^\infty} < C\), where \(\| e_{g_i} ( f_i ) \|_{L^\infty}\) is the \(L^\infty\)-norm of the energy density of the map \(f_i\) and \(C\) is a constant independent of \(i\). Then \(f_i\) has a subsequence which converges to a map \(f : (X, g, \Phi \mu_g) \to (N, h)\), and this map is a harmonic map in \({\mathcal H}^1((X, \Phi\mu_g ), N)\).