Liouville theorem for $V$-harmonic maps under non-negative $(m, V)$-Ricci curvature for non-positive $m$
This is a joint work with Professors, Xiang-Dong Li (CAS AMSS), Songzi Li (Renmin University) and Yohei Sakurai (Saitama University). Let $V$ be a $C^1$-vector field on an $n$-dimensional complete Riemannian manifold $(M, g)$. We prove a Liouville theorem for $V$-harmonic maps satisfying various growth conditions from complete Riemannian manifolds with non-negative $(m, V)$-Ricci curvature for $m\in\,[\,-\infty,\,0\,]\,\cup\,[\,n,\,+\infty\,]$ into Cartan-Hadamard manifolds, which extends Cheng's Liouville theorem proved in S.Y. Cheng for sublinear growth harmonic maps from complete Riemannian manifolds with non-negative Ricci curvature into Cartan-Hadamard manifolds. We also prove a Liouville theorem for $V$-harmonic maps from complete Riemannian manifolds with non-negative $(m, V)$-Ricci curvature for $m\in\,[\,-\infty,\,0\,]\,\cup\,[\,n,\,+\infty\,]$ into regular geodesic balls of Riemannian manifolds with positive upper sectional curvature bound, which extends the results of Hildebrandt-Jost-Wideman and Choi. Our stochastic proof of Liouville theorem for several growth $V$-harmonic maps into Hadamard manifolds fills an incomplete argument in \cite{Staff:Liouville}. Our results extend the results due to Chen-Jost-Qiu and Qiu in the case of $m=+\infty$ on the Liouville theorem for bounded $V$-harmonic maps from complete Riemannian manifolds with non-negative $(\infty, V)$-Ricci curvature into regular geodesic balls of Riemannian manifolds with positive sectional curvature upper bound. Finally, we establish a connection between the Liouville property of $V$-harmonic maps and the recurrence property of $\Delta_V$-diffusion processes on manifolds. Our results are new even in the case $V=\nabla f$ for $f\in C^2(M)$.