Harmonic transforms of complete Riemannian manifolds (Q509145)

Let \(M\) be a non-compact and connected smooth manifold with Riemannian metrics \(g\), \(\overline{g}\). A diffeomorphism \(f: (M,g)\longrightarrow (M,\overline{g}) \) is called \textit{harmonic} if it is a critical point of the energy functional \[ E_\Omega =\frac{1}{2}\int_{\Omega}\| df\|^2 dV_g \] for any open and relatively compact subset \(\Omega \subset M\) with respect to variations of \(f\) compactly supported on \(\Omega.\) The authors prove the following result: If the sectional curvature of \(\overline{g}\) is non-negative then there is no harmonic transformation \(f\) of finite energy such that the Ricci tensors of the metrics \(g\) and \(\overline{g}\) at the points \(y=f(x)\) satisfy \(\mathrm{Ric}\geq f^\ast\overline{\text{Ric}}\). The authors present further vanishing theorems for harmonic and infinitesimal harmonic transformations and for Ricci solitons.