Tournaments, flags, and harmonic maps (Q1079244)

This paper examines combinatorial aspects underlying the theory of harmonic maps of Riemann surfaces into complex Grassmannian manifolds. Directed graphs are used to describe both invariant almost complex structures on complex flag manifolds and the differentials of the associated (pseudo-) holomorphic curves. Geometrical properties, such as integrability, of the almost complex structures translate into properties of the corresponding digraphs and, in particular, a graph-theoretic characterization is obtained of the twistor fibrations studied by the first author [Math. Ann. 274, 61-74 (1986; Zbl 0575.58018)]. From this, a purely formal argument shows that a certain class of holomorphic curves project onto harmonic maps into Grassmannians and a converse construction, exploiting algebro-geometric methods, leads to a new proof of a theorem of Uhlenbeck (to appear) that all harmonic (or equivalently minimal) 2-spheres in a complex Grassmannian can be built up from holomorphic data.