Biharmonic maps, conformal deformations and the Hopf maps (Q953916)

A biharmonic map is a map \(\varphi:(M, g)\longrightarrow (N, h)\) between Riemannian manifolds that is a critical point of the bienergy functional \[ E^{2}\left(\varphi,\Omega \right)= \frac{1}{2} {\int}_{\Omega} \left|\tau(\varphi) \right|^{2}\text{d}x \] for every compact subset \(\Omega\) of \(M\), where \(\tau(\varphi)=\text{Trace}_{g}\nabla \text{d} \varphi\) is the tension field of \(\varphi\). Locally, these maps are solutions of the PDEs: \[ \text{Trace}_{g}(\nabla^{\varphi}\nabla^{\varphi}-\nabla^{\varphi}_{\nabla^{M}})\tau(\varphi) - \text{Trace}_{g} R^{N}(\text{d}\varphi, \tau(\varphi))\text{d}\varphi =0, \] where \(R^{N}\) to denote the curvature operator of \((N, h)\) defined by \[ R^{N}(X,Y)Z= [\nabla^{N}_{X},\nabla^{N}_{Y}]Z-\nabla^{N}_{[X,Y]}Z. \] Clearly, any harmonic map is biharmonic. Those non-harmonic biharmonic maps are called proper biharmonic maps examples of which are very difficult to find. One idea to find proper biharmonic maps is to perform special conformal changes of the domain metric of a harmonic map [see \textit{P. Baird} and \textit{D. Kamissoko}, Ann. Global Anal. Geom. 23, No. 1, 65--75 (2003; Zbl 1027.31004)], or the target metric of an identity map [see \textit{A. Balmus}, An. Stiint. Univ. Al. I. Cuza Iasi. Mat. (N.S.) 50, No. 2, 361--372 (2004; Zbl 1070.58016)], so that the map becomes a proper biharmonic map with respect to the new metric. In the paper under review, the author derives the biharmonicity equation for the maps obtained from harmonic morphisms (i.e., horizontally weakly conformal harmonic maps) undergone a conformal change of the metric in the target manifold. Some new example of proper biharmonic maps are constructed by applying this method to Hopf maps.