Stability of harmonic maps of Kähler manifolds (Q1124145)

The authors establish conditions under which stable harmonic maps between Hermitian manifolds are necessarily \(\pm\) holomorphic. Namely, they prove: Theorem 1. Let \(\phi: M\to N\) be a stable harmonic map of a closed Riemann surface into a compact simple Hermitian symmetric space. Then \(\phi\) is \(\pm\) holomorphic. Theorem 3. Let \(\phi: M\to N\) be a stable harmonic map from a real-analytic four-dimensional Riemannian manifold \(M\) to a compact simple Hermitian symmetric space \(N\), and suppose that there is a point where \(d\phi\) has rank at least 3. Then \(M\) has a unique Kähler structure \(\tilde J\) with respect to which \(q\) is holomorphic. Results similar to Theorem 1 were first proved for nonlinear \(\sigma\)-models. In this paper the authors use ideas of \textit{H. B. Lawson} jun. and \textit{J. Simons} [Ann. Math. (2) 98, 427--450 (1973; Zbl 0283.53049)] which derive a curvature condition by averaging over suitable gradient vector fields. Theorem 1 was also obtained by \textit{Y. Ohnita} and \textit{S. Udagawa} [Tokyo J. Math. 10, 385--390 (1987; Zbl 0646.58019)] by similar methods. However here the authors are also able to generalize the approach to the case of complex projective spaces in the domain.