Harmonic sections and equivariant harmonic maps (Q1383229)

Let \(\pi:N\to M\) be a smooth submersion of Riemannian manifolds. A smooth right inverse \(\sigma : M\to N\) of \(\pi\) is said to be a harmonic section if \(\sigma\) is a critical point of the vertical energy functional \[ E^v(\sigma)={{1}\over{2}}\int | d^v\sigma| ^2, \] where \(d^v\sigma\) denotes the vertical component relative to the orthogonal splitting \(TN=V\oplus H\) with \(V=\text{ker} (d\pi)\). In the article under review, the author considers the case of particular interest when \(\pi\) is a fibre bundle with fibre \(F\) and structure Lie group \(G\) over a Riemannian manifold \(M\). Assuming, in addition, that \(F\) is endowed with a \(G\)-invariant Riemannian metric and \(\pi\) with a connection, taking a horizontal lift of the metric on \(M\) we can introduce in \(N\) a natural Riemannian metric (called Kaluza-Klein metric) such that the map \(\pi\) becomes a Riemannian submersion. If \(\xi:Q\to M\) is the principal \(G\)-bundle associated to \(\pi\), then there is a well-known one-to-one correspondence between sections \(\sigma\) of \(\pi\) and \(G\)-equivariant mappings \(s:Q\to F\), to which we refer as the equivariant lift of \(\sigma\). The main results of the article under review establish relations between harmonic sections and their equivariant lifts. Theorem 1. \(\sigma\) is a harmonic section if and only if \(s\) is a horizontally harmonic map. Theorem 2. Suppose that \(G\) is unimodular and \(F\) is compact with non-positive Ricci curvature. Then \(\sigma\) is a harmonic section if and only if \(s\) is a harmonic map. Theorem 3. Suppose that \(F\) is a normal \(G\)-homogeneous Riemannian manifold and the Kaluza-Klein metric on \(Q\) is constructed from any compatible metric on \(G\). Then \(\sigma\) is a harmonic section if and only if \(s\) is a harmonic map.