In this article, we introduce a new method (based on Perelman's lambda-functional) to study the stability of compact Ricci-flat metrics. Under the assumption that all infinitesimal Ricci-flat deformations are integrable we prove: (A) a Ricci-flat metric is a local maximizer of lambda in a C^2,alpha-sense iff its Lichnerowicz Laplacian is nonpositive, (B) lambda satisfies a Lojasiewicz-Simon gradient inequality, (C) the Ricci flow does not move excessively in gauge directions. As consequences, we obtain a rigidity result, a new proof of Sesum's dynamical stability theorem, and a dynamical instability theorem.
In this paper we discuss Perelman's Lambda-functional, Perelman's Ricci shrinker entropy as well as the Ricci expander entropy on a class of manifolds with isolated conical singularities. On such manifolds, a singular Ricci de Turck flow preserving the isolated conical singularities exists by our previous work. We prove that the entropies are monotone along the singular Ricci de Turck flow. We employ these entropies to show that in the singular setting, Ricci solitons are gradient and that steady or expanding Ricci solitons are Einstein.
In this paper, we are interested in conical structures of manifolds with respect to the Ricci flow and, in particular, we study them from the point of view of Perelman's functionals. In a first part, we study Perelman's $λ$ and $ν$ functionals of cones and characterize their finiteness in terms of the $λ$-functional of the link. As an application, we characterize manifolds with conical singularities on which a $λ$-functional can be defined and get upper bounds on the $ν$-functional of asymptotically conical manifolds. We then present an adaptation of the proof of Perelman's pseudolocality theo…
In this paper, we consider the generalized lambda constant and the existence of ground states of the generalized Perelman's W-functional from a variational formulation. One result is concerned with the estimation of the generalized $λ$ constant. The other results are about the existence of ground states of generalized $F$-functional and W-functional both on a complete non-compact Riemannian manifold $(M,g)$ with positive injectivity radius and with Ricci curvature bounded from below. Our main results are Theorems 2,3 and 7. For the existence of the ground states we use Lions' concentration-com…
We give two new proofs of Perelman's theorem that shrinking breathers of Ricci flow on closed manifolds are gradient Ricci solitons, using the fact that the singularity models of type I solutions are shrinking gradient Ricci solitons and the fact that non-collapsed type I ancient solutions have rescaled limits being shrinking gradient Ricci solitons.
This is the first of a series of papers on the long-time behavior of 3 dimensional Ricci flows with surgery. In this paper we first fix a notion of Ricci flows with surgery, which will be used in this and the following three papers. Then we review Perelman's long-time estimates and generalize them to the case in which the underlying manifold is allowed to have a boundary. Eventually, making use of Perelman's techniques, we prove new long-time estimates, which hold whenever the metric is sufficiently collapsed.
In this expository note, we study the second variation of Perelman's entropy on the space of Kahler metrics at a Kähler-Ricci soliton. We prove that the entropy is stable in the sense of variations. In particular, Perelman's entropy is stable along the Kähler-Ricci flow. The Chinese version of this note has appeared in a volume in honor of professor K.C.Chang (Scientia Sinica Math., 46 (2016), 685-696).
We study Brownian motion and stochastic parallel transport on Perelman's almost Ricci flat manifold $\mathscr M=M\times \mathbb S^N\times I$, whose dimension depends on a parameter $N$ unbounded from above. We construct sequences of projected Brownian motions and stochastic parallel transports which for $N \to \infty$ converge to the corresponding objects for the Ricci flow. In order to make precise this process of passing to the limit, we study the martingale problems for the Laplace operator on $\mathscr M$ and for the horizontal Laplacian on the orthonormal frame bundle $\mathscr{OM}$ . As …
In [ZY2], the second author proved Perelman's assertion, namely, for an ancient Ricci flow with bounded and nonnegative curvature operator, bounded entropy is equivalent to noncollapsing on all scales. In this paper, we continue this discussion. It turns out that the curvature operator nonnegativity is not a necessary condition, and we need only to assume a consequence of Hamilton's trace Harnack. Furthermore, we show that this condition holds for steady Ricci solitons with nonnegative Ricci curvature.
In this paper, we study the Ricci flat manifolds with maximal volume growth using Perelman's reduced volume of Ricci flow. We show that if $(M^n,g)$ is an noncompact complete Ricci flat manifold with maximal volume growth satisfying $|Rm|(x)\to 0$ as $d(x)=d_g(x,p)\to \infty$, then $M^n$ has the quadratic curvature decay. Some applications to this result are also presented.
In this paper, we prove the characterization of the $(K, \infty)$-super Perelman Ricci flows by various functional inequalities and gradient estimate for the heat semigroup generated by the Witten Laplacian on manifolds equipped with time dependent metrics and potentials. As a byproduct, we derive the Hamilton type dimension free Harnack inequality on manifolds with $(K, \infty)$-super Perelman Ricci flows. Based on a new second order differential inequality on the Boltzmann-Shannon entropy for the heat equation of the Witten Laplacian, we introduce a new $W$-entropy quantity and prove its mon…
The Ricci flow is a natural evolution equation for Riemannian metrics on a given manifold. The main goal is to understand singularity formation. In his spectacular 2002 breakthrough, Perelman achieved a qualitative understanding of singularity formation in dimension $3$. More precisely, Perelman showed that every finite-time singularity to the Ricci flow in dimension $3$ is modeled on an ancient $κ$-solution. Moreover, Perelman proved a structure theorem for ancient $κ$-solutions in dimension $3$. In this survey, we discuss recent developments which have led to a complete classification of all…
In this paper, we show that any ancient solution to the Ricci flow with the reduced volume whose asymptotic limit is sufficiently close to that of the Gaussian soliton is isometric to the Euclidean space for all time. This is a generalization of Anderson's result for Ricci-flat manifolds. As a corollary, a gap theorem for gradient shrinking Ricci solitons is also obtained.
In this paper, we extend the method in [TZhu5] to study the energy level $L(\cdot)$ of Perelman's entropy $λ(\cdot)$ for Kähler-Ricci flow on a Fano manifold. Consequently, we first compute the supremum of $λ(\cdot)$ in Kähler class $2πc_1(M)$ under an assumption that the modified Mabuchi's K-energy $μ(\cdot)$ defined in [TZhu2] is bounded from below. Secondly, we give an alternative proof to the main theorem about the convergence of Kähler-Ricci flow in [TZhu3].
In this paper, we first show that a complete shrinking breather with Ricci curvature bounded from below must be a shrinking gradient Ricci soliton. This result has several applications. First, we can classify all complete $3$-dimensional shrinking breathers. Second, we can show that every complete shrinking Ricci soliton with Ricci curvature bounded from below must be gradient -- a generalization of Naber's result. Furthermore, we develop a general condition for the existence of the asymptotic shrinking gradient Ricci soliton, which hopefully will contribute to the study of ancient solutions.
In recent years, there has seen much interest and increased research activities on Perelman's paper. Section one and two of this paper aim to establish Perelman's local non-collapsing result for the Ricci flow. This will provide a positive lower bound on the injectivity radius for the Ricci flow under blow-up analysis. We also discuss the gradient flow formalism of the Ricci flow and Perelman's motivation from physics. In this paper, we survey some of the recent progress on Perelman's functional, reduced volume and reduced length.
In his study of Ricci flow, Perelman introduced a smooth-manifold invariant called lambda-bar. We show here that, for completely elementary reasons, this invariant simply equals the Yamabe invariant, alias the sigma constant, whenever the latter is non-positive. On the other hand, the Perelman invariant just equals + infinity whenever the Yamabe invariant is positive.
These are detailed notes on Perelman's papers "The entropy formula for the Ricci flow and its geometric applications" and "Ricci flow with surgery on three-manifolds".
We study blow-ups around fixed points at Type I singularities of the Ricci flow on closed manifolds using Perelman's W-functional. First, we give an alternative proof of the result obtained by Naber and Enders-Müller-Topping that blow-up limits are non-flat gradient shrinking Ricci solitons. Our second and main result relates a limit W-density at a Type I singular point to the entropy of the limit gradient shrinking soliton obtained by blowing-up at this point. In particular, we show that no entropy is lost at infinity during the blow-up process.
We introduce a flow of Riemannian metrics over compact manifolds with formal limit at infinite time a shrinking Ricci soliton. We call this flow the Soliton-Ricci flow. It correspond to a Perelman's modified backward Ricci type flow with some special restriction conditions. The restriction conditions are motivated by convexity results for Perelman's $\mathcal{W}$-functional over convex subsets inside adequate subspaces of Riemannian metrics. We show indeed that the Soliton-Ricci flow is generated by the gradient flow of the restriction of Perelman's $\mathcal{W}$-functional over such subspaces…
In this note, we construct families of functionals of the type of $\mathcal{F}$-functional and $\mathcal{W}$-functional of Perelman. We prove that these new functionals are nondecreasing under the Ricci flow. As applications, we give a proof of the theorem that compact steady Ricci breathers must be Ricci-flat. Using these new functionals, we also give a new proof of Perelman's no non-trivial expanding breather theorem. Furthermore, we prove that compact expanding Ricci breathers must be Einstein by a direct method. In this note, we also extend X. Cao's methods of eigenvalues\cite{C} and impro…
In this thesis we give a review on Ricci flow, an overview on Poincare conjecture, maximum principle, Li-Yau-Perelman estimate, Two functional F and W of Perelman, Reduced volume and reduced length and k-non collapsing estimate
Non linear sigma models are quantum field theories describing, in the large deviations sense, random fluctuations of harmonic maps between a Riemann surface and a Riemannian manifold. Via their formal renormalization group analysis, they provide a framework for possible generalizations of the Hamilton-Perelman Ricci flow. By exploiting the heat kernel embedding introduced by N. Gigli and C. Mantegazza, we show that the Wasserstein geometry of the space of probability measures over Riemannian metric measure spaces provides a natural setting for discussing the relation between non-linear sigma m…
We numerically calculate Perelman's entropy for a variety of canonical metrics on $\mathbb{CP}^{1}$-bundles over products of Fano Kähler-Einstein manifolds. The metrics investigated are Einstein metrics, Kähler-Ricci solitons and quasi-Einstein metrics. The calculation of the entropy allows a rough picture of how the Ricci flow behaves on each of the manifolds in question.
In this paper, we prove logarithmic Sobolev inequalities and derive the Hamilton Harnack inequality for the heat semigroup of the Witten Laplacian on complete Riemannian manifolds equipped with $K$-super Perelman Ricci flow. We establish the $W$-entropy formula for the heat equation of the Witten Laplacian and prove a rigidity theorem on complete Riemannian manifolds satisfying the $CD(K, m)$ condition, and extend the $W$-entropy formula to time dependent Witten Laplacian on compact Riemannian manifolds with $(K, m)$-super Perelman Ricci flow, where $K\in \mathbb{R}$ and $m\in [n, \infty]$ are…
We verify a conjecture of Perelman, which states that there exists a canonical Ricci flow through singularities starting from an arbitrary compact Riemannian 3-manifold. Our main result is a uniqueness theorem for such flows, which, together with an earlier existence theorem of Lott and the second named author, implies Perelman's conjecture. We also show that this flow through singularities depends continuously on its initial condition and that it may be obtained as a limit of Ricci flows with surgery. Our results have applications to the study of diffeomorphism groups of three manifolds --- i…
In \cite{P1}, Perelman established a differential Li-Yau-Hamilton (LYH) type inequality for fundamental solutions of the conjugate heat equation corresponding to the Ricci flow on compact manifolds (also see \cite{N2}). As an application of the LYH inequality, Perelman proved a pseudolocality result for the Ricci flow on compact manifolds. In this article we provide the details for the proofs of these results in the case of a complete non-compact Riemannian manifold. Using these results we prove that under certain conditions, a finite time singularity of the Ricci flow must form within a compa…
In 1870s, L. Boltzmann proved the famous $H$-theorem for the Boltzmann equation in the kinetic theory of gas and gave the statistical interpretation of the thermodynamic entropy. In 2002, G. Perelman introduced the notion of $W$-entropy and proved the $W$-entropy formula for the Ricci flow. This plays a crucial role in the proof of the no local collapsing theorem and in the final resolution of the Poincaré conjecture and Thurston's geometrization conjecture. In our previous paper \cite{Li11a}, the author gave a probabilistic interpretation of the $W$-entropy using the Boltzmann-Shannon-Nash en…
In this purely expository note, we recall a few known properties of 3-dimensional singularity models. These properties are direct consequences of Perelman's canonical neighborhood theorem for 3-dimensional Ricci flow and compactness theorem for 3-dimensional kappa-solutions.
In this paper, we prove the Li-Yau type Harnack inequality and Hamilton type dimension free Harnack inequality for the heat equation $\partial_t u=Lu$ associated with the time dependent Witten Laplacian on complete Riemannian manifolds equipped with a variant of the $(K, m)$-super Perelman Ricci flows and the $K$-super Perelman Ricci flows.
As an application of his entropy formula, Perelman proved that every compact shrinking breather is a shrinking gradient Ricci soliton. We give a proof for the complete noncompact case by using Perelman's $\mathcal{L}$-geometry. Our proof follows the argument in Lu and Zheng of constructing an ancient solution, and removes a technical assumption made by them.
We establish a point-wise gradient estimate for $all$ positive solutions of the conjugate heat equation. This contrasts to Perelman's point-wise gradient estimate which works mainly for the fundamental solution rather than all solutions. Like Perelman's estimate, the most general form of our gradient estimate does not require any curvature assumption. Moreover, assuming only lower bound on the Ricci curvature, we also prove a localized gradient estimate similar to the Li-Yau estimate for the linear Schrödinger heat equation. The main difference with the linear case is that no assumptions on th…
In the first part of this short article, we define a renormalized F-functional for perturbations of non-compact steady Ricci solitons. This functional motivates a stability inequality which plays an important role in questions concerning the regularity of Ricci-flat spaces and the non-uniqueness of the Ricci flow with conical initial data. In the second part, we define a geometric invariant lambda_AF for asymptotically flat manifolds with nonnegative scalar curvature. This invariant gives a quantitative lower bound for the ADM-mass from general relativity, motivates a Ricci flow proof of the r…
This is a short note in which we show how to calculate the value of Perelman's nu-functional for a variety of metrics. In particular we complete the calculation of values for the known 4-dimensional Einstein and shrinking Ricci soliton metrics.
We study ancient Ricci flows which admit asymptotic solitons in the sense of Perelman. We prove that the asymptotic solitons must coincide with Bamler's tangent flows at infinity. Furthermore, we show that Perelman's $ν$-functional is uniformly bounded on such ancient solutions; this fact leads to logarithmic Sobolev inequalities and Sobolev inequalities. Lastly, as an important tool for the proofs of the above results, we also show that, for a complete Ricci flow with bounded curvature, the bound of the Nash entropy depends only on the local geometry around an $H_n$-center of its base point.
We show that Perelman's W-functional can be generalized to Sasaki-Ricci flow. When the basic first Chern class is positive, we prove a uniform bound on the scalar curvature, the diameter and a uniform $C^1$ bound for the transverse Ricci potential along the Sasaki-Ricci flow, which generalizes Perelman's results Kahler-Ricci flow to the Sasakian setting. We also show that the positivity of transverse of holomorphic bisectional curvature is preserved along the flow, using the methods and the results proved by Bando and Mok in Kahler setting. In particular, we show that the Sasaki-Ricci flow wou…
This is essentially a note on Section 7 of Perelman's first paper on Ricci flow. We list some basic properties of the index form for Perelman's $ \mathcal{L} $-length, which are analogous to the ones in Riemannian case (with fixed metric), and observe that Morse's index theorem for Perelman's $\mathcal{L}$-length holds. As a corollary we get the finiteness of the number of the $\mathcal{L}$-conjugate points along a finite $\mathcal{L}$-geodesic.
We show that an orientable 3-dimensional manifold M admits a complete riemannian metric of bounded geometry and uniformly pos- itive scalar curvature if and only if there exists a finite collection F of spherical space-forms such that M is a (possibly infinite) connected sum where each summand is diffeomorphic to S2xS1 or to some mem- ber of F. This result generalises G. Perelman's classification theorem for compact 3-manifolds of positive scalar curvature. The main tool is a variant of Perelman's surgery construction for Ricci flow.
We prove that Perelman's ancient ovals occur as blowup limit in 3d Ricci flow through singularities if and only if there is an accumulation of spherical singularities.
We consider the volume-normalized Ricci flow close to compact shrinking Ricci solitons. We show that if a compact Ricci soliton $(M,g)$ is a local maximum of Perelman's shrinker entropy, any normalized Ricci flow starting close to it exists for all time and converges towards a Ricci soliton. If $g$ is not a local maximum of the shrinker entropy, we show that there exists a nontrivial normalized Ricci flow emerging from it. These theorems are analogues of results in the Ricci-flat and in the Einstein case.
We derive modified Perelman-type monotonicity formulas for solutions to the generalized Ricci flow equation with symmetry on principal bundles, which lead to rigidity and classification results for nonsingular solutions.
We give a simple proof of an extension of the existence results of Ricci flow of G.Giesen and P.M.Topping [GiT1],[GiT2], on incomplete surfaces with bounded above Gauss curvature without using the difficult Shi's existence theorem of Ricci flow on complete non-compact surfaces and the pseudolocality theorem of G.Perelman [P1] on Ricci flow. We will also give a simple proof of a special case of the existence theorem of P.M.Topping [T] without using the existence theorem of W.X.Shi [S1].
Under suitable conditions near infinity and assuming boundedness of curvature tensor, we prove a no breathers theorem in the spirit of Ivey-Perelman for some noncompact Ricci flows. These include Ricci flows on asymptotically flat (AF) manifolds with positive scalar curvature. Since the method for the compact case faces a difficulty, the proof involves solving a new non-local elliptic equation which is the Euler-Lagrange equation of a scaling invariant log Sobolev inequality.
The Ricci iteration is a discrete analogue of the Ricci flow. According to Perelman, the Ricci flow converges to a Kahler-Einstein metric whenever one exists, and it has been conjectured that the Ricci iteration should behave similarly. This article confirms this conjecture. As a special case, this gives a new method of uniformization of the Riemann sphere.
On a Fano manifold, we prove that the Kahler-Ricci flow starting from a Kahler metric in the anti-canonical class which is sufficiently close to a Kahler-Einstein metric must converge in a polynomial rate to a Kahler-Einstein metric. The convergence can not happen in general if we study the flow on the level of Kahler potentials. Instead we exploit the interpretation of the Ricci flow as the gradient flow of Perelman's μfunctional. This involves modifying the Ricci flow by a canonical family of gauges. In particular, the complex structure of the limit could be different in general. The main te…
In this note we derive an improved no-local-collapsing theorem of Ricci flow under the scalar curvature bound condition along the worldline of the basepoint. It is a refinement of Perelman's no-local-collapsing theorem.
