Quantitative gradient estimates for harmonic maps into singular spaces (Q2010447)

In this paper, the authors show Yau's gradient estimate for harmonic maps in a metric space with curvature bounded above by a nonnegative constant in the sense of Alexandrov. In [Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Étud. Sci. 76, 165--246 (1992; Zbl 0896.58024)], \textit{M. Gromov} and \textit{R. Schoen} initiated to study harmonic maps into singular spaces, and general theory of harmonic maps between singular spaces was developed by \textit{N. J. Korevaar} and \textit{R. M. Schoen} [Commun. Anal. Geom. 1, No. 4, 561--659 (1993; Zbl 0862.58004)], \textit{J. Jost} [Calc. Var. Partial Differ. Equ. 2, No. 2, 173--204 (1994; Zbl 0798.58021); ibid. 5, No. 1, 1--19 (1997; Zbl 0868.31009)] and \textit{F. H. Lin} [in: Collection of papers on geometry, analysis and mathematical physics. In honor of Professor Gu Chaohao. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing. 114--126 (1997; Zbl 1028.58019)], independently. Let \(\Omega\) be a bounded domain with smooth boundary of an \(n\)-dimensional Riemannian manifold \((M, g)\) with \(\operatorname{Ric}_M \ge -K\) for some \(K \ge 0\), and let \((X, d_X)\) be a \(\mathrm{CAT}(0)\)-space. Suppose that \(u : \Omega \to X\) is a harmonic map. Under these situations, the authors prove that, given any ball \(B_R(x_0)\) with \(B_{2R}(x_0)\subset\subset \Omega\), if \(u(B_R(x_0))\subset B_\rho(p_0)\) for some \(p_0\in X\) and some \(\rho >0\), then \[ \sup_{B_{R/2}(x_0)} \mathrm{ Lip} u \le C_{n, \sqrt{K}R} \cdot \frac{\rho}{R}. \] This result gives an affirmative answer to the problem proposed in [\textit{J. Jost}, AMS/IP Stud. Adv. Math. 8, 1--47 (1998; Zbl 0914.31006)]. Also, as an immediate application of this result, the authors obtain a Liouville-type property. Namely, let \((M, g)\) be a complete noncompact \(n\)-dimensional Riemannian manifold of nonnegative Ricci curvature, \((X, d_X)\) a \(\mathrm{CAT}(0)\)-space, and \(u : M \to X\) a harmonic map. If \(u\) satisfies sub-linear growth property for some point \(p_0\in X\), then \(u\) must be a constant map. For the case when the target space has curvature less than or equal to \(\kappa\) for some \(\kappa>0\), the authors show the following \[ \sup_{B_{R/2}(x_0)} \operatorname{Lip} u \le \frac{C_{n, \sqrt{K}R, \pi/(2\sqrt{\kappa})-\rho}}{R}. \]