Heat equation for harmonic maps of the compactification of complete manifolds (Q1568970)

Recall that the heat-flow \(u(x,t): M\times [0,+\infty)\to N\) is the solution of the heat equation \[ \Biggl({{\partial}\over{\partial t}}- \Delta\Biggr) u(x,t)=0,\tag{1} \] where \(\Delta\) is the Laplace-Beltrami operator. The classical results by Eells-Sampson and Li-Tam state the global existence of the solution of the heat-flow equation for the case when \(N\) has non-positive sectional curvature. The authors of the article under review propose the thesis that the heat equation behaves like a bunch of uncoupled linear equations when the target manifold has non-positive sectional curvature, even in the presence of topology. First they obtain a point-wise generalization of the Donnely-Li result on continuity of functions which are solutions of the linear heat equation on open manifolds as follows. Let \(M'=M\cup {\overline x}\) be a one-point extension of \(M\), and \(M'\) satisfies the ball convergence condition, i.e., every sequence of geodesic balls \(B(x_n,r)\) of a fixed radius \(r\) converge to \(\overline x\) if \(x_n\) converge to \(\overline x\). Then for an arbitrary continuous function \(\phi: M\to R\) which is Lipschitz on \(M\) the solution of the heat equation \[ \Biggl({{\partial}\over{\partial t}}- \Delta\Biggr) f(x,t)=0 \tag{2} \] on \(M\) with initial condition \(f(x,0)=\phi(x), x\in M\) converge to \(\phi(\overline x)\) as \(x\to \overline x\). It is known that when the target manifold has positive curvature the solution of the heat equation (2) may blow up in finite time. The authors prove the long tice existence when the solution is confined to a convex ball, first for the heat equation (2) and then for the heat-flow (1) under the same condition. One of the main results is as follows. ``Suppose \(N\) is a complete Riemannian man d whose sectional curvature is bounded above by a constant \(\mu > 0\). Let \(p\in \in N\). Assume that \(\tau < \min \{\pi/2\sqrt{2}, \text{inj}_p(N) \}\). Suppose that \(M\) is a complete Riemannian manifold with Ricci curvature bounded below by a constant. Let \(M'=M\cup\{\overline x\}\) be a one-point extension of \(M\) satisfying the ball convergence condition. Let \(u\) be the unique solution of (1) with initial data \(f\colon M\to B_\tau(p)\) which is a \(C^1\) map with bounded energy density. Suppose that \(f(x)\) converges to \(f(\overline x)\) as \(x\) goes to \(\overline x\). Then, for any \(t\), \(u(x,t)\) converges to \(f(\overline x)\), as \(x\) goes to \(\overline x\)''.