Deforming a map into a harmonic map

Abstract

Using a flow first introduced by J.P. Anderson, we obtain some existence theorems for harmonic maps from a noncompact complete Riemannian manifold into a complete Riemannian manifold. In particular, we prove as a corollary a recent result of Hardt and Wolf stating that any quasisymmetric map of the sphere that is sufficiently close to the identity can be extended to a quasiconformal harmonic diffeomorphism of the hyperbolic ball. This version contains a much simpler proof than the first version.