Deformations of twisted harmonic maps and variation of the energy (Q484335)

This paper is devoted to the study of the infinitesimal behavior of harmonic mappings with respect to a reductive representation. In the first part of the paper, the author introduces the concept of \textit{polarized harmonic local system} as a triple \((V,\sigma,S)\), where \(V\) is the local system of parallel sections of a flat bundle \((\nu,D)\), \(\sigma:\nu\rightarrow\nu\) is an \(\mathbb{R}\)-linear involution, \(S\) is a flat symmetric non-degenerate quadratic form, which is positive definite on the \((+1)\)-eigenspace \(\nu^+\) of \(\sigma\) and negative definite on the \((-1)\)-eigenspace \(\nu^-\) of \(\sigma\) and such that the positive-definite metric given by \(h(v,w)=S(v,\sigma(w))\) makes \((\nu,D)\) a harmonic bundle. Next, he proves a lot of basic properties about polarized harmonic local systems and constructs the universal twisted harmonic mapping \(\mathcal{H}\), proving its continuity and the one of the energy functional \(E\). One of the main results of the paper concerns the critical points of \(E\). He shows that these points are exactly the representations induced by polarized complex variations of Hodge structure. In the last part of the paper, he investigates the existence of second-order deformations and gives a method for constructing them. Finally, it is proved that the energy functional is a potential for the Kähler form of the Betti moduli space.