Singular fibres of harmonic morphisms on \(\mathbb{S}^4\) (Q2327995)

Harmonic morphisms are maps between Riemannian manifolds which pull back local harmonic functions to local harmonic functions. These maps are well known [\textit{B. Fuglede}, Ann. Inst. Fourier 28, No. 2, 107--144 (1978; Zbl 0339.53026); \textit{T. Ishihara}, J. Math. Kyoto Univ. 19, 215--229 (1979; Zbl 0421.31006)] to be horizontally weakly conformal harmonic maps. It was proved in [\textit{J. C. Wood}, Int. J. Math. 3, No. 3, 415--439 (1992; Zbl 0763.53051)] that there is no non-constant harmonic morphism \(S^4\to S^2\) between Euclidean spheres. However, \textit{J.-M. Burel} [C. R. Acad. Sci., Paris, Sér. I, Math. 332, No. 5, 441--446 (2001; Zbl 1040.58005)] shows that there are a family of harmonic morphisms from \(( S^4, g_{k,l})\to S^2\) obtained as the composition of a family of horizontally conformal maps followed by the Hopf fibration, where \(g_{k,l}\) is a family of metrics conformal to the Euclidean metric on \(S^4\). It is well known that the fibers over a regular value of any harmonic morphisms into a surface are minimal surfaces. The paper under review studies the critical points and the fibers over singular values of this family of harmonic morphisms.