Constancy of \(p\)-harmonic maps of finite \(q\)-energy into non-positively curved manifolds (Q2465398)

The authors study \(p\)-harmonic mappings between a complete Riemannian manifold \(\langle M,g_{M}\rangle \) and a complete non-positively curved Riemannian manifold \ \(\langle N,g_{N}\rangle \). A \(C^{1}\)-mapping \(u:\langle M,g_{M}\rangle \to\langle N,g_{N} \rangle \) is said to be \(p\)-harmonic (\(p\geq2\)) if \(\text{div} ( | du| ^{p-2}du) =0\). The authors prove a uniqueness theorem, a Caccioppoli-type inequality and, as a corollary, derive a Liouville theorem for \(p\)-harmonic mappings and obtain energy type estimates for converging \(p\)-harmonic mappings with constant speed convergence. A Riemannian manifold \(\langle R,g_{R}\rangle \) is said to be \(p\)-parabolic (\(p>1\)), if the problem \(\Delta_{p}u\geq0,\) \(\sup_{M}u<+\infty,\) \(u\in C( M) \cap W_{\text{loc}}^{1,p}( M) \), has only constant solutions, where \(\Delta_{p}u=\text{div}( | \nabla u| ^{p-2}\nabla u) \). The authors' uniqueness theorem states that if, in addition to the foregoing conditions, \(\langle M,g_{M}\rangle \) is \(p\)-parabolic, \(| du| ^{p}\in L^{1}( M) \) and \(u:\langle M,g_{M}\rangle \to\langle N,g_{N}\rangle \) is \(p\)-harmonic and homotopic to a constant, then \(u\equiv \text{const in }M\). If \(\langle M,g_{M}\rangle \) satisfies the Poincaré-Sobolev inequality \(S_{\alpha}\| \eta^{2}\| _{L^{\frac{1}{1-\alpha}} }\leq\| d\eta\| _{L^{2}}^{2}\), for every \(\eta\in C_{c}^{\infty}\) and, for some constants \(0\leq\alpha<1\), \(S_{\alpha}>0\), and \(\text{Ricci}( M) \geq-k( x) \) on \(M\), where \(k( x) \) is a non-negative continuous function satisfying \[ \| k\| _{L^{\frac{1}{\alpha}}}<S_{\alpha}\left[ 1+2q-\left(\frac{p-2}{p-1}\right) -2| q| \frac{p-2}{p-1}\right] ( q+1) ^{-2}, \] for some \(p\geq2\) and \(q>-1/[ 2( p-1) ] \), then the authors prove that for every \(\;p\)-harmonic mapping \(u:\langle M,g_{M}\rangle \to\langle N,g_{N}\rangle \) the function \(\psi=| du| ^{p-1}\) satisfies the Caccioppoli inequality \[ \int_{M}| d\psi| ^{2}\psi^{2q}\rho^{2}\leq C\left( p,q,S_{\alpha}^{-1}\| k\| _{L^{\frac{1}{\alpha}}}\right) \int_{M}\psi^{2( q+1) }| d\rho| ^{2} \] for every \(\rho\in C_{c}^{\infty}( M) \). With the hypothesis of the Caccioppoli inequality, the authors prove the following Liouville theorem: if \(| du| ^{p-1}\in L^{2( q+1) }( M) ,\) then \(u\equiv \text{const}\).