Harmonic tori and generalised Jacobi varieties (Q5944148)

Summarized from the author's introduction: If \(\varphi:M\to S^2\) is a non-conformal harmonic torus, it is known that \(\varphi\) is determined by a set of spectral data, consisting of a real hyperelliptic curve \(X\) equipped with a degree two function \(\lambda\). One of the aims of the paper is to give some geometric interpretation of how \(\varphi\) arises from the algebraic geometry of \(X\). This picture is based on certain generalized Jacobi varieties. If \(X\) is nonsingular with Jacobi variety \(J\), and if \(\lambda\) is unbranched over \(\lambda=1\), we can define a singularization \(X'\) of \(X\) by identifying the two points \(O_1\), \(O_2\) with \(\lambda=1\) to obtain an ordinary double point. This singularization has a generalized Jacobian variety \(J'\), which is the moduli space of degree zero line bundles over \(X'\). Now, the harmonic map \(\varphi\) factors through \(J'\), i.e.\ \(\varphi=\psi\circ\gamma\) for some \(\gamma:M\to J'\); moreover \(\gamma\) is a homeomorphism of real groups and \(\psi\) a rational map. The generalized Jacobi variety \(J'\) can be seen as a non-trivial \(C^*\)-bundle over \(J\), the fibres encoding how the fibres over \(O_1\) and \(O_2\) of line bundles over \(X\) are identified to get a line bundle over \(X'\). It turns out that the bundle \(J'\to J\) can be realized as a subbundle of the bundle of projective frames of a certain rank two vector bundle \(E\). There is also a natural trivialization of this projective frame bundle over \(J'\). This trivialization can be used to turn sections into maps to the fibre (and similarly for a \(k\)-plane bundle instead of the projective frame bundle). For appropriate choices of sections restricted to the right choice of a real two-dimensional subgroup \(\gamma(R^2)\subset J'\), one obtains harmonic (indeed, pluri-harmonic) maps of \(R^{2n}\) to \(PU(n+1)\) and Grassmannians which factor in a similar way like those to \(S^2\). From these, in special cases, one can get harmonic tori which are purely algebraic.