Harmonic maps with torsion (Q2037791)

This interesting paper under review is devoted to a first study of harmonic maps that are coupled to a torsion endomorphism on the target manifold. Such maps are called ``harmonic maps with torsion'' and they appear as solutions of an equation obtained by taking the standard harmonic map equation and then changing to a connection with metric torsion. The author investigates various geometric aspects of harmonic maps with torsion. First, some Bochner type formulas are established and the effects of conformal transformations on harmonic maps with torsion are studied. Next, the stability of harmonic maps with torsion is discussed. The last part of the article investigates analytic aspects of harmonic maps with torsion. It is showed that they satisfy the unique continuation property, a removable singularity theorem is proved and a Liouville type result under a small energy assumption is stated.