Scalar curvature, mean curvature and harmonic maps to the circle (Q2673436)

The paper under review deals with harmonic maps with total space a 3-manifold \(N\) and having as base space the unit circle \(S^1\). In the main result of the article, the authors derive an inequality involving the scalar curvature \(R_N\) of \(N\), the mean curvature \(H_{\partial N}\) of \(\partial N\) and the Euler characteristic \(\chi (\Sigma_\theta)\) of the level sets \(\Sigma_\theta\). Therefore, if \(u:N\rightarrow S^1\) is a harmonic map with a Dirichlet condition \(u|_{\partial N}=[0]\in S^1\) such that for almost all \(\theta\in S^1\) the level set \(\Sigma_\theta=u^{-1}(\theta)\) is closed, then the next inequality is satisfied \[ \int_{N}\frac{1}{2}\left[\frac{|\mathrm{Hess}\,u|^2}{|du|}+R_N|du|\right]+\int_{\partial N}H_{\partial N}|du|\leq \int_{S^1}\chi (\Sigma_\theta). \]