Harmonic diffeomorphisms between the annuli with rotational symmetry (Q2442555)

The authors deal with the existence or non-existence of rotationally symmetric harmonic diffeomorphisms between the annuli with the Poincaré metric, or Euclidean metric on the target manifold. There are many results on existence or non-existence of harmonic diffeomorphisms between Riemannian manifolds, or from the unit disk onto the plane. For instance, \textit{E. Heinz} [Nachr. Akad. Wiss. Göttingen, Math.-Phys. Kl., Math.-Phys.-Chem. Abt. 1952, 51--56 (1952; Zbl 0048.15401)] proved the non-existence of harmonic diffeomorphism from the unit disk onto \({\mathbb C}\) with its flat metric. Recently, \textit{P. Collin} and \textit{H. Rosenberg} [Ann. Math. (2) 172, No. 3, 1879--1906 (2010; Zbl 1209.53010)] constructed harmonic diffeomorphisms from \({\mathbb C}\) onto the Poincaré disk, and \textit{M. Leguil} and \textit{H. Rosenberg} [``On harmonic diffeomorphisms from conformal annuli to Riemannian annuli'', Preprint] showed the non-existence of harmonic diffeomorphism from the punctured disk \({\mathbb D}\setminus \{0\}\) onto the flat cylinder \({\mathbb S}^1 \times {\mathbb R}\). Denote the annulus by \(P(a) = {\mathbb D} \setminus \{|z| \leq a\}\) for \(0 < a < 1\). The authors prove that for \(0 < a \leq b <1\), there is a rotationally symmetric harmonic diffeomorphism from \(P(b)\) onto \(P(a)\) with the Poincaré metric. In fact, the authors obtain some necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of rotationally symmetric harmonic diffeomorphism, which are given by inequalities for \(a\) and \(b\). They also show that there is a rotationally symmetric harmonic diffeomorphism from \(P(b)\) onto \(P(a)\) with its Euclidean metric if and only if \(a \leq \frac{2b}{1+b^2}\), and there is no rotationally symmetric harmonic diffeomorphism from \(P(a)\) onto \({\mathbb C}\setminus \{0\}\) with its Euclidean metric if and only if \(a \leq \frac{2b}{1+b^2}\) and vice versa.