Homotopy problems for harmonic maps to spaces of nonpositive curvature (Q1006898)

The author considers free and Dirichlet homotopy problems for harmonic maps from a compact Riemannian polyhedron, with non empty boundary, to a compact geodesic space of nonpositive curvature. The energy functional is an important ingredient. For the free homotopy problem, it is shown that every free homotopy class has an energy minimizer which is harmonic and uniformly Hölder continuous. Note that two energy minimizers relative to a free homotopy class are identical if they agree at a point. The Dirichlet homotopy problem is formuated for maps and homotopy classes of maps with prescribed values outside a given domain of the source space whose boundary is subject to some regularity condition coming from potential theory. It is shown that every homotopy class of functions `with prescribed values outside a certain domain' has an energy minimizer whose restriction to the given domain is harmonic. In fact the earlier results of this type by N. J. Korevar and R. M. Schoen are strengthened and extended. There are overlaps with earlier results by L. Lemaire and by J. Sacks and K. Uhlenbeck.