Existence of \(p\)-energy minimizers in homotopy classes and lifts of Newtonian maps (Q2000400)

Two \(p\)-quasicontinuous maps \(u, v : X \to Y\) from a metric measure space \(X\) to a topological space \(Y\) are said to be \(p\)-quasihomotopic if there is a map \(h : X \times [0, 1] \to Y\) so that, given any \(\epsilon>0\), there exists an open set \(E \subset X\) with \(\mathrm{Cap}_p (E)< \epsilon\) such that \(h|_{X\setminus E \times [0,1]}\) is a classical (continuous) homotopy between \(u|_{X\setminus E}\) and \(v|_{X\setminus E}\). The domain \((X, d, \mu)\) is assumed to be a compact doubling \(p\)-Poincaré space, i.e., it is a metric measure space supporting a weak \((1, p)\)-Poincaré inequality, \(1 < p< \infty\). Now assuming \(Y\) is a connected, locally path connected Hausdorff space admitting a universal cover, consider the space \(C([0,1], Y)\) with the compact-open topology, and equivalence relation \(\sim\), where \(\alpha \sim \beta\) if \(\alpha\) and \(\beta\) are endpoint preserving homotopic as paths. We set \({\widehat Y}_{\mathrm{diag}} = C([0,1], Y)/\sim\), called the diagonal cover of \(Y\). It is known that the map \(p: {\widehat Y}_{\mathrm{diag}} \to Y\times Y\) given by \(p([\gamma]) = (\gamma(0), \gamma(1))\) is a covering map and \(p_\sharp \pi ({\widehat Y}_{\mathrm{diag}}) = {\mathrm{diag}}(\pi(Y))\le \pi(Y) \times \pi(Y)\). With theses notions, we say that \(Y\) is path representable if the component maps of \(p: {\widehat Y}_{\mathrm{diag}} \to Y\times Y\) are homotopic as maps \({\widehat Y}_{\mathrm{diag}} \to Y\). In this paper, the author studies the notion of \(p\)-quasihomotopy in Newtonian classes of mappings, \(N^{1, p}(X, Y)\), and link it to questions concerning lifts of Newtonian maps, under the assumption that the target space \(Y\) is a nonpositively curved manifold. Recall that the Newtonian space \(N^{1, p}(X, Y)\) consists of equivalence classes of measurable mappings \(u : X \to Y\) for which there exists a \(p\)-integrable upper gradient \(g\). The space \(N^{1, p}(X, Y)\) equipped with the norm \(\Vert u\Vert_{1,p}^p = \Vert u\Vert^p_{L^p(X, Y)} + \inf_g \Vert g\Vert^p_{L^p(\mu)}\) is a Banach space. Given a covering map \(\phi: \widehat Y \to Y\) that is a local isometry, we say that a map \(u \in N^{1,p}(X, Y)\) admits a lift \(h \in N^{1,p}(X, \widehat Y)\) if \(\phi\circ h = u\) as maps in \(N^{1, p}(X, Y)\). Using this connections, the author proves that every \(p\)-quasihomotopy class of Newtonian maps contains a minimizer of the \(p\)-energy if the target \(Y\) has hyperbolic fundamental group.