No label defined (Q4549085)

Let \(\Omega\) be a simply connected domain in the extended complex plane \({\mathbb C}\cup \{\infty \}\) and \(U(n)\) the unitary subgroup of \(GL({\mathbb C}, n)\). With the canonical metric on \(\Omega\) and the biinvariant metric on \(U(n)\), for a harmonic map \(s : \Omega \to U(n)\), the extended solution \(E_\lambda : \Omega \to U(n)\), \(\lambda \in {\mathbb C}-\{0\}\) is defined in the sense of [ \textit{K. Uhlenbeck}, J. Differ. Geom. 30, 1--50 (1989; Zbl 0677.58020)]. The extended solution of \(s\) makes the classification of the harmonic map \(s\) into finite harmonic maps and infinite harmonic maps possible. It is proved [\textit{Y. Dong} and \textit{Y. Shen}, Sci. Sin., Ser. A 39, 589--597 (1996; Zbl 0861.58009)] that a finite harmonic map may be factorized as a product of a number of maps into complex Grassmannians. On the other hand, denoting by \(A(S^2, U(n))\) the set of all meromorphic functions defined on the punctured sphere \(S^2 -\{p_1, \cdots, p_l\}\) with values in \(U(n)\) with no zeros and poles at \(0\) and \(\infty\) and \(f(1) = I\), define \[ A_R(S^2, U(n)) = \{f \in A(S^2, U(n))\,:\, f(\lambda) f^*(\sigma(\lambda)) = I, \sigma(\lambda) = {\bar\lambda}^{-1}\,\}. \] The author constructs a group action of \(A_R(S^2, U(n))\) on the space \(M^k(U(n))\) consisting of finite extended solutions by defining for \(f\in A_R(S^2, U(n))\) and \(E_\lambda \in M^k(U(n))\), \[ (f, E_\lambda) = f^\#E_\lambda = (\pi + \xi_a(\lambda)\pi^\perp) E_\lambda(\tilde \pi + \xi_a^{-1}(\lambda){\tilde \pi}^\perp), \] where \(\displaystyle{\xi_a(\lambda) = \left(\frac{\lambda-a}{\bar a \lambda -1}\right)\left(\frac{\bar a -1}{1-a}\right), a \in S^2, a \neq 0, \infty, | a| \neq 1}\), \(\tilde \pi : \Omega \times {\mathbb C}^n \to \widetilde V\) is a Hermitian orthogonal projection, and for any \(q\in \Omega, {\widetilde V}(q) = (E_a(q))^*V, V =\pi({\mathbb C}^n)\), \(\pi: \Omega \times {\mathbb C}^n \to \eta \in G^{n, k}\) is a Hermitian orthogonal projection. The author proves the factorization of a finite harmonic map \(s : \Omega \to U(n)\) is commutative to the action of the group \(A_R(S^2, U(n))\) on \(s\).