On harmonic maps from the complex plane to hyperbolic 3-space

Abstract

For any twisted ideal polygon in ${\mathbb{H}}^3$, we construct a harmonic map from $\mathbb{C}$ to ${\mathbb{H}}^3$ with a polynomial Hopf differential, that is asymptotic to the given polygon, and is a bounded distance from a pleated plane. Our proof uses the harmonic map heat flow. We also show that such a harmonic map is unique once we prescribe the principal part of its Hopf differential.

32 pages, 4 figures -- v2 simplifies the argument in section 3.5.1