Harmonic morphism

In mathematics, a harmonic morphism is

a (smooth) map
between
Riemannian manifolds that pulls back real-
valued harmonic functions on the
codomain to harmonic functions on the
domain. Harmonic morphisms form a
special class of harmonic maps i.e. those
that are horizontally (weakly) conformal.[1]
In local coordinates, on and on ,
the harmonicity of is expressed by the
non-linear system

where and are the

Christoffel symbols on and ,
respectively. The horizontal conformality
is given by

where the conformal factor

is a continuous function called the
dilation. Harmonic morphisms are
therefore solutions to non-linear over-
determined systems of partial differential
equations, determined by the geometric
data of the manifolds involved. For this
reason, they are difficult to find and have
no general existence theory, not even
locally.

Complex analysis
When the codomain of
is a surface, the
system of partial differential equations
that we are dealing with, is invariant under
conformal changes of the metric . This
means that, at least for local studies, the
codomain can be chosen to be the
complex plane with its standard flat
metric. In this situation a complex-valued
function is a
harmonic morphisms if and only if

and

This means that we look for two real-

valued harmonic functions
with gradients
that are orthogonal and of the
same norm at each point. This shows that
complex-valued harmonic morphisms
 from Riemannian
manifolds generalise holomorphic
functions from
Kähler manifolds and possess many of
their highly interesting properties. The
theory of harmonic morphisms can
therefore be seen as a generalisation of
complex analysis.[1]

Minimal surfaces
In differential geometry, one is interested
in constructing minimal submanifolds of a
given ambient space . Harmonic
morphisms are useful tools for this
purpose. This is due to the fact that every
regular fibre of such a map
 with values in a
surface is a minimal submanifold of the
domain with codimension 2.[1] This gives
an attractive method for manufacturing
whole families of minimal surfaces in 4-
dimensional manifolds , in
particular, homogeneous spaces, such as
Lie groups and symmetric spaces.

Examples
Identity and constant maps are
harmonic morphisms.
Holomorphic functions in the complex
plane are harmonic morphisms.
Holomorphic functions in the complex
vector space are harmonic
morphisms.
Holomorphic maps from Kähler
manifolds with values in a Riemann
surface are harmonic morphisms.

The Hopf maps ,

and are
harmonic morphisms.
For compact Lie groups
the standard Riemannian fibration
is a harmonic
morphism.
Riemannian submersions with minimal
fibres are harmonic morphisms.
References
1. "Harmonic Morphisms Between
Riemannian Manifolds" (http://ukcatalogue.
oup.com/product/9780198503620.do) .
Oxford University Press.

External links
The Bibliography of Harmonic
Morphisms (https://www.matematik.lu.s
e/matematiklu/personal/sigma/harmon
ic/bibliography.html) , offered by
Sigmundur Gudmundsson
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