Vanishing theorems for harmonic mappings into non-negatively curved manifolds and their applications (Q2408125)

Bochner proved vanishing theorems under appropriate curvature conditions on compact Riemannian manifolds. His method, the analytic Bochner method, was applied to complex, complete Riemannian and Lorentzian manifolds and to harmonic maps between them. In this paper the authors prove that any harmonic map \(f: (M,g) \to (\overline{M}, \overline{g})\) between Riemannian manifolds \((M,g)\) and \((\overline{M}, \overline{g})\) is totally geodesic if the sectional curvature of \((\bar{M}, \bar{g})\) is non-negative and the Ricci tensor for the compact manifold \((M,g)\) satisfies \(\operatorname {Ric} \geq f^{\ast } \overline{\operatorname {Ric}}\) for the pullback \(f^{\ast } \overline{\operatorname {Ric}}\) of the Ricci tensor \( \overline{\operatorname {Ric}}\) by \(f\). The authors use a generalized Bochner technique to show that a harmonic map of finite energy \((f)\) from a complete manifold \((M,g)\) with Ricci tensor \(\operatorname {Ric} \geq f^{\ast } \overline{\operatorname {Ric}}\) to a manifold \((\overline{M}, \overline{g})\) with sectional curvature \(\overline{\text{sec}} \geq 0\) is totally geodesic. The map \(f: (M,g) \to (\overline{M}, \overline{g})\) is called a contraction if \( f^{\ast } \overline{g} \leq g\) everywhere on \(M\). The authors prove that any harmonic contraction between a compact Riemannian manifold \((M,g)\) such that \(\operatorname {Ric} > (\bar{n} -1) g\) and the unit sphere \(S^{\bar{n}}(1)\) is a constant map. The Bochner technique was generalized for harmonic maps between Kähler manifolds. In this paper the authors show that any holomorphic map \((M,g,J) \to (\overline{M}, \overline{g}, \overline{J})\) between a complete almost semi-Kählerian manifold \((M,g,J)\) with Ricci tensor \(\operatorname {Ric} \geq f^{\ast } \overline{\operatorname {Ric}}\) and a nearly-Kählerian manifold \((\overline{M}, \overline{g}, \overline{J})\) with sectional curvature \(\overline{\text{sec}} \geq 0\) is totally geodesic if its energy \((f)\) is finite.