Remarks on the nonexistence of biharmonic maps

In this short note we study a nonexistence result of biharmonic maps from a complete Riemannian manifold into a Riemannian manifold with nonpositive sectional curvature. Assume that \({\phi : (M, g) \to (N, h)}\) is a biharmonic map, where (M, g) is a complete Riemannian manifold and (N, h) a Riemannian manifold with nonpositive sectional curvature, we will prove that \({\phi}\) is a harmonic map if one of the following conditions holds: (i) \({|d\phi|}\) is bounded in L^q(M) and \({\int_{M}|\tau(\phi)|^{p}dv_{g} < \infty}\), for some \({1 \leq q \leq \infty}\), \({1 < p < \infty}\); or (ii) \({Vol(M) = \infty}\) and \({\int_{M}|\tau(\phi)|^{p}dv_{g} < \infty}\), for some \({1 < p < \infty}\). In addition, if N has strictly negative sectional curvature, we assume that \({rank\phi(q) \geq 2}\) for some \({q \in M}\) and \({\int_{M}|\tau(\phi)|^{p}dv_{g} < \infty}\), for some \({1 < p < \infty}\). These results improve the related theorems due to Baird et al. (cf. Ann Golb Anal Geom 34:403–414, 2008), Nakauchi et al. (cf. Geom. Dedicata 164:263–272, 2014), Maeta (cf. Ann Glob Anal Geom 46:75–85, 2014), and Luo (cf. J Geom Anal 25:2436–2449, 2015).