New examples of biharmonic maps in spheres (Q4815098)

A map \(\varphi\) between Riemannian manifolds is said to be biharmonic if it is a critical point of the bi-energy \({1\over 2}\int |\tau(\varphi)|^2 v\), where \(\tau(\varphi)\) is the tension field of \(\varphi\). Equivalently, \(\varphi\) is biharmonic if \(\tau(\varphi)\) is in the kernel of the Jacobi operator. The author shows that a Riemannian submersion onto the parallel sphere \(S^n(a)\subset S^{n+1}\) half-way between a great sphere and a point is biharmonic iff the submersion is harmonic. Further examples of nonharmonic biharmonic examples are given using conformal changes of the metric.