Pluriharmonic maps of maximal rank (Q2385010)

A map \(f: M\to P\) from a Kähler manifold \(M\) into a Riemannian manifold \(P\) is called pluriharmonic if its Hessian \(\nabla df\) has a vanishing \((1,1)\)-part. If \(P\) is a Riemannian symmetric space, the image \(df_x(T_x'M)\) of the holomorphic tangent space \(T_x'M\) is a flat subspace of \(T^c_pP\), where \(p= f(x)\). Then the maximum dimension of the flat subspaces of \(T^c_pP\) is a bound for the rank of any pluriharmonic map into \(P\). If \(P\) is Hermitian, any holomorphic or anti-holomorphic map is also pluriharmonic. The authors consider the pluriharmonic maps of maximal rank which are not holomorphic or anti-holomorphic if \(P\) is a complex Grassmannian \(P= G_n(\mathbb{C}^{n+ m})\). Then the maximal dimension of a flat subspace other than \(T_p'P\) and \(T^{\prime\prime}_pP\) is \(r= (n- 1)(m- 1)+ 1\). They construct examples of such maps and locally classify all of them under the additional assumption of being isotropic.