Monotonicity properties of harmonic maps into NPC spaces (Q1941575)

The article under review presents several results about monotonicity properties of harmonic maps into NPC spaces. After giving the necessary background on NPC spaces and harmonic maps into NPC spaces, Section 2 reviews several important results on the subject due to \textit{M. Gromov} and \textit{R. Schoen} [Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Étud. Sci.76, 165--246 (1992; Zbl 0896.58024)]. Among these are the existence of an order function associated to harmonic maps into NPC spaces and, using the monotonicity properties of the order function, the Lipschitz continuity of harmonic maps into NPC spaces. In addition, the authors discuss blowup maps and tangent maps for harmonic maps to NPC spaces following [\textit{N. Korevaar} and \textit{R. M. Schoen}, Commun. Anal. Geom. 5, No. 2, 333--387 (1997; Zbl 0908.58007), ibid. 1, No. 4, 561--659 (1993; Zbl 0862.58004)]. Section 3 discusses other quantities associated to harmonic maps into NPS spaces that satisfy monotonicity formulas. In particular, quantities that measure the deviation of a map from being homogeneous are studied. In the fourth section the authors introduce the notion of Alexandrov tangent maps. Moreover, they deduce a criterion when the notion of tangent maps and Alexandrov tangent maps coincide. Finally, in Section 5, results regarding the uniqueness of tangent maps are generalized to the case of Alexandrov tangent maps into NPC spaces. Moreover, two examples are discussed.