Curvature and bubble convergence of harmonic maps (Q363197)

A classical area of harmonic map theory, started by Sacks-Uhlenbeck [\textit{J. Sacks} and \textit{K. Uhlenbeck}, Ann. Math. (2) 113, 1--24 (1981; Zbl 0462.58014)], is concerned with sequences of maps of surfaces with bounded energy, and with describing the energy concentration at single points in terms of harmonic spheres. In this paper, the author studies sequences of harmonic maps from a Riemannian surface to some given closed Kähler manifold \(M\). If bubbling occurs, the bubbles (as nontrivial harmonic spheres) necessarily meet some area of \(M\) which has some positive sectional curvature. The main result of the paper describes how those ``spots of positive curvature'' are distributed in the limit, with an amount \(\geq2\pi\) of positive curvature (when pulled back with the map) concentrating at each bubble. This result, keeping track of curvature densities instead of energy densities, adds a nice bit of geometric information to the description of the bubbling process.