Biharmonic maps from Finsler spaces

Abstract

The notions of bienergy of a smooth mapping and of biharmonic map between Riemannian manifolds are extended to the case when the domain is Finslerian. We determine the first and the second variation of the bienergy functional, the equations of Finsler-to-Riemann biharmonic maps and some specific examples. Two notable results in Riemannian geometry concerning the inexistence of nonharmonic biharmonic maps are extended without difficulty in our case.