Index and nullity of a family of harmonic tori in the sphere (Q2844282)

There are natural harmonic maps \({\mathbb C}\to G\) into a compact, semisimple matrix Lie group \(G\) called \textit{vacuum solutions}. Embedding \(S^2=SU(2)/S(U(1)\times U(1))\) into \(SU(2)\) via the Cartan embedding, the vacuum solutions to \(SU(2)\) can be interpreted as harmonic maps to \(S^2\). Under a natural condition, they are doubly periodic, and therefore give harmonic maps \(T\to S^2\) of the torus corresponding to the periodicity. For those harmonic maps, index and nullity are calculated. The formula reduces the calculation to counting the lattice points on and inside an ellipse.