We construct a rotationally invariant Ricci flow through surgery starting at any closed rotationally invariant Riemannian manifold. We demonstrate that a sequence of such Ricci flows with surgery converges to a Ricci flow spacetime in the sense of [32]. Results of Bamler-Kleiner [8] and Haslhofer [29] then guarantee the uniqueness and stability of these spacetimes given initial data. We simplify aspects of this proof in our setting, and show that for rotationally invariant Ricci flows, the closeness of spacetimes can be measured by equivariant comparison maps. Finally we show that the blowup rate of the curvature near a singular time for these Ricci flows is bounded by the inverse of remaining time squared.
We prove a uniform Sobolev inequality for Ricci flow, which is independent of the number of surgeries. As an application, under less assumptions, a non-collapsing result stronger than Perelman's $κ$ non-collapsing with surgery is derived. The proof is shorter and seems more accessible. The result also improves some earlier ones where the Sobolev inequality depended on the number of surgeries.
In this note, using Calabi's method, we construct rotationally symmetric Kahler-Ricci solitons on the total space of direct sum of fixed hermitian line bundle and its projective compactification, where the curvature of hermitian line bundle is Kahler-Einstein. These examples generalize the construction of Koiso, Cao and Feldman-Ilmanen-Knopf.
In this paper we study a boundary value problem for the Ricci flow in the two dimensional ball endowed with a rotationally symmetric metric. We show short and long time existence results. We construct families of metrics for which the flow uniformizes the curvature along a sequence of times. Finally we show that if the initial metric has positive Gaussian curvature and the boundary positive geodesic curvature then the flow uniformizes de curvature along a sequence of times.
We study the Ricci flow on $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$, with $n\geq 2$, starting at some complete bounded curvature rotationally symmetric metric $g_{0}$. We first focus on the case where $(\mathbb{R}^{n+1},g_{0})$ does not contain minimal hyperspheres; we prove that if $g_{0}$ is asymptotic to a cylinder then the solution develops a Type-II singularity and converges to the Bryant soliton, while if the curvature of $g_{0}$ decays at infinity, then the solution is immortal. As a corollary, we prove a conjecture by Chow and Tian about Perelman's standard solutions. We then consider a class of asymptotica…
In this paper we study the gradient Ricci shrinking soliton equation on rotationally symmetric manifolds of dimension three and higher and prove that the only complete examples of such metrics on $S^n$, $\R{n}$ and $\R{}\times S^{n-1}$ are, respectively, the round, flat, and standard cylindrical metrics.
In previous work, Angenent, Isenberg, and Knopf created type-II Ricci flow neckpinch singularities. In this paper we construct solutions to Ricci flow whose initial data is the singular metric resulting from these singularities. We show in particular that the curvature decreases at the same rate at which it blew up. This is the first example of Ricci flow starting from a type-II singularity.
In this survey we review Hamilton's entropy and Perelman's entropy, and provide motivations for these concepts. Then we review recent results on the logarithmic Sobolev inequality, the Sobolev inequalities and kappa-noncollapsing estimates along the Ricci flow, including the Ricci flow with surgeries.
In the following series of papers we analyze the long-time behavior of 3 dimensional Ricci flows with surgery. Our main result will be that if the surgeries are performed correctly, then only finitely many surgeries occur and after some time the curvature is bounded by $C t^{-1}$. This result confirms a conjecture of Perelman. In the course of the proof, we also obtain a qualitative description of the geometry as $t \to \infty$.
In this paper we analyze the long-time behavior of 3 dimensional Ricci flows with surgery. Our main result is that if the surgeries are performed correctly, then only finitely many surgeries occur and after some time the curvature is bounded by $C t^{-1}$. This result confirms a conjecture of Perelman. In the course of the proof, we also obtain a qualitative description of the geometry as $t \to \infty$. This paper is the third part of a series. Previously, we had to impose a certain topological condition $\mathcal{T}_2$ to establish the finiteness of the surgeries and the curvature control. T…
This is a technical paper, which is a continuation of math.DG/0211159. Here we construct Ricci flow with surgeries and verify most of the assertions, made in section 13 of that e-print; the exceptions are (1) the statement that manifolds that can collapse with local lower bound on sectional curvature are graph manifolds - this is deferred to a separate paper, since the proof has nothing to do with the Ricci flow, and (2) the claim on the lower bound for the volume of maximal horns and the smoothness of solutions from some time on, which turned out to be unjustified and, on the other hand, irre…
We show that any locally conformally flat ancient solution to the Ricci flow must be rotationally symmetric. As a by-product, we prove that any locally conformally flat Ricci soliton is a gradient soliton in the shrinking and steady cases as well as in the expanding case, provided the soliton has nonnegative curvature.
We study the Ricci flow on $\mathbb{R}^{4}$ starting at an SU(2)-cohomogeneity 1 metric $g_{0}$ whose restriction to any hypersphere is a Berger metric. We prove that if $g_{0}$ has no necks and is bounded by a cylinder, then the solution develops a global Type-II singularity and converges to the Bryant soliton when suitably dilated at the origin. This is the first example in dimension $n > 3$ of a non-rotationally symmetric Type-II flow converging to a rotationally symmetric singularity model. Next, we show that if instead $g_{0}$ has no necks, its curvature decays and the Hopf fibers are not…
We consider compact noncollapsed ancient solutions to the 3-dimensional Ricci flow that are rotationally and reflection symmetric. We prove that these solutions are either the spheres or they all have unique asymptotic behavior as $t\to-\infty$ and we give their precise asymptotic description. This description applies in particular to the solution constructed by G.Perelman
In [4], we proved that every noncompact ancient $κ$-solution to the Ricci flow in dimension $3$ is either locally isometric to a family of shrinking cylinders, or isometric to the Bryant soliton. In the same paper, we announced that the same method implies that compact ancient $κ$-solutions are rotationally symmetric. In this note we provide the details of this argument.
In this note, we prove that a 3-dimensional steady Ricci soliton is rotationally symmetric if its scalar curvature $R(x)$ satisfies $$\frac{C_0^{-1}}{ρ(x)}\le R(x)\le \frac{C_0}{ρ(x)}$$ for some constant $C_0>0$, where $ρ(x)$ denotes the distance from a fixed point $x_0$. Our result doesn't assume that the soliton is $κ$-noncollapsed.
We derive a logarithmic Sobolev inequality along the Ricci flow without any restriction on time, which depends only on the initial metric via rudimentary geometric data, assuming only that a certain first eigenvalue is positive. As a consequence we obtain a uniform Sobolev inequality along the Ricci flow without any restriction on time. One application of it is a uniform kappa-noncollapsing estimate which holds true for all time. We also obtain similar results for bounded time without assuming the eigenvalue condition. The results extend to the Ricci flow with surgeries.
We show for a non homogeneous boundary value problem for the Ricci flow on the disk that when the initial metric has positive curvature and the boundary is convex then the initial metric is deformed, via the normalized flow and along sequences of times, to a metric of constant curvature and totally geodesic boundary. We also show that when the geodesic curvature of the boundary is nonpositive and the metric is rotationally symmetric, the normalized version of the flow exists for all time.
In this second part of a series of papers on the long-time behavior of Ricci flows with surgery, we establish a bound on the evolution of the infimal area of simplicial complexes inside a 3-manifold under the Ricci flow. This estimate generalizes an area estimate of Hamilton, which we will recall in the first part of the paper. We remark that in this paper we will mostly be dealing with non-singular Ricci flows. The existence of surgeries will not play an important role.
In earlier work, carrying out numerical simulations of the Ricci flow of families of rotationally symmetric geometries on $S3$, we have found strong support for the contention that (at least in the rotationally symmetric case) the Ricci flow for a ``critical'' initial geometry - one which is at the transition point between initial geometries (on $S^3$) whose volume-normalized Ricci flows develop a singular neck pinch, and other initial geometries whose volume normalized Ricci flows converge to a round sphere - evolves into a ``degenerate neck pinch.'' That is, we have seen in this earlier work…
In this paper, we construct smooth forward Ricci flow evolutions of singular initial metrics resulting from rotationally symmetric neckpinches on S^(n+1), without performing an intervening surgery. In the restrictive context of rotational symmetry, this construction gives evidence in favor of Perelman's hope for a "canonically defined Ricci flow through singularities".
The best known finite-time local Ricci flow singularity is the neckpinch, in which a proper subset of the manifold becomes geometrically close to a portion of a shrinking cylinder. In this paper, we prove precise asymptotics for rotationally symmetric Ricci flow neckpinches. We then compare these rigorous results with formal matched asymptotics for fully general neckpinch singularities.
Gu and Zhu have shown that Type-II Ricci flow singularities develop from nongeneric rotationally symmetric Riemannian metrics on $S^m$, for all $m\geq 3$. In this paper, we describe and provide plausibility arguments for a detailed asymptotic profile and rate of curvature blow-up that we predict such solutions exhibit.
We study "warped Berger" solutions $\big(\mc S^1\times\mc S^3,G(t)\big)$ of Ricci flow: generalized warped products with the metric induced on each fiber $\{s\}\times\mathrm{SU}(2)$ a left-invariant Berger metric. We prove that this structure is preserved by the flow, that these solutions develop finite-time neckpinch singularities, and that they asymptotically approach round product metrics in space-time neighborhoods of their singular sets, in precise senses. These are the first examples of Ricci flow solutions without rotational symmetry that become asymptotically rotationally symmetric loc…
This is the fourth and last part of a series of papers on the long-time behavior of 3 dimensional Ricci flows with surgery. In this paper, we prove our main two results. The first result states that if the surgeries are performed correctly, then the flow becomes non-singular eventually and the curvature is bounded by $C t^{-1}$. The second result provides a qualitative description of the geometry as $t \to \infty$.
We prove that the Ricci flow on CP^n blown-up at one point starting with any rotationally symmetric Kahler metric must develop Type I singularities. In particular, if the total volume does not go to zero at the singular time, the parabolic blow-up limit of the Type I Ricci flow along the exceptional divisor is a complete non-flat shrinking gradient Kahler-Ricci soliton on a complete Kahler manifold homeomorphic to C^n blown-up at one point.
In this paper we analyze the long-time behaviour of 3 dimensional Ricci flow with surgery. We prove that under the topological condition that the initial manifold only has non-aspherical or hyperbolic components in its geometric decomposition, there are only finitely many surgeries and the curvature is bounded by $C t^{-1}$ for large $t$. This answers an open question in Perelman's work, which was made more precise by Lott and Tian, for this class of initial topologies. More general classes will be discussed in subsequent papers using similar methods.
In this work, we are going to find sufficient conditions on the initial triaxial Bianchi IX metric on some 4-dimensional manifolds foliated by homogeneous S3 for a Type I singularity to occur when it is flowed under the Ricci flow. This work generalises the study on rotationally symmetric manifolds done by Angenent and Isenberg as well as the work of Isenberg, Knopf, and Sesum, in which they introduced some ansatz for the problem setup.
In this paper, we study $κ$-noncollapsed ancient solutions to the Ricci flow with nonnegative curvature operator in higher dimensions. We impose one further assumption: one of the asymptotic shrinking gradient Ricci solitons is the standard cylinder $\mathbb{S}^{n-1}\times\mathbb{R}$. By making use of the properties of such ancient solutions, we generalize part one of Brendle \cite{brendle2018ancient} to higher dimensions, that is, every noncompact $κ$-noncollapsed rotationally symmetric ancient solution to the Ricci flow with bounded positive curvature operator must be the Bryant soliton.
In each dimension $N\geq 3$ and for each real number $λ\geq 1$, we construct a family of complete rotationally symmetric solutions to Ricci flow on $\mathbb{R}^{N}$ which encounter a global singularity at a finite time $T$. The singularity forms arbitrarily slowly with the curvature blowing up arbitrarily fast at the rate $(T-t)^{-(λ+1)}$. Near the origin, blow-ups of such a solution converge uniformly to the Bryant soliton. Near spatial infinity, blow-ups of such a solution converge uniformly to the shrinking cylinder soliton. As an application of this result, we prove that there exist standa…
We present a new curvature condition which is preserved by the Ricci flow in higher dimensions. For initial metrics satisfying this condition, we establish a higher dimensional version of Hamilton's neck-like curvature pinching estimate. Using this estimate, we are able to prove a version of Perelman's Canonical Neighborhood Theorem in higher dimensions. This makes it possible to extend the flow beyond singularities by a surgery procedure in the spirit of Hamilton and Perelman. As a corollary, we obtain a classification of all diffeomorphism types of such manifolds in terms of a connected sum …
It is well-known that the Ricci flow of a closed 3-manifold containing an essential minimal 2-sphere will fail to exist after a finite time. Conversely, the Ricci flow of a complete, rotationally symmetric, asymptotically flat manifold containing no minimal spheres is immortal. We discuss an intermediate case, that of a complete, noncompact manifold with essential minimal hypersphere. For 3-manifolds, if the scalar curvature vanishes on asymptotic ends and is bounded below initially by a negative constant (that depends on the initial area of the minimal sphere), we show that a singularity deve…
This is the second part of a series of papers analyzing the long-time behaviour of 3 dimensional Ricci flows with surgery. We generalize the methods developed in the first part and use them to treat cases in which the initial manifold satisfies a certain purely topological condition which is far more general than the one that we previously had to impose. Amongst others, we are able to treat initial topologies such as the 3-torus or $Σ\times S^1$ where $Σ$ is any surface of genus $\geq 1$. We prove that under this condition, only finitely many surgeries occur and that after some time the curvat…
We consider the normalized Ricci flow evolving from an initial metric which is conformally compactifiable and asymptotically hyperbolic. We show that there is a unique evolving metric which remains in this class, and that the flow exists up to the time where the norm of the Riemann tensor diverges. Restricting to initial metrics which belong to this class and are rotationally symmetric, we prove that if the sectional curvature in planes tangent to the orbits of symmetry is initially nonpositive, the flow starting from such an initial metric exists for all time. Moreover, if the sectional curva…
We study Ricci flows on $R^n$, $n\ge 3$, that evolve from asymptotically flat initial data. Under mild conditions on the initial data, we show that the flow exists and remains asymptotically flat for an interval of time. The mass is constant in time along the flow. We then specialize to the case of rotationally symmetric, asymptotically flat initial data containing no embedded minimal hyperspheres. We show that in this case the flow is immortal, remains asymptotically flat, never develops a minimal hypersphere, and converges to flat Euclidean space as the time diverges to infinity. We discuss …
B List has proposed a geometric flow whose fixed points correspond to solutions of the static Einstein equations of general relativity. This flow is now known to be a certain Hamilton-DeTurck flow (the pullback of a Ricci flow by an evolving diffeomorphism) on RxM^n. We study the SO(n) rotationally symmetric case of List's flow under conditions of asymptotic flatness. We are led to this problem from considerations related to Bartnik's quasi-local mass definition and, as well, as a special case of the coupled Ricci-harmonic map flow. The problem also occurs as a Ricci flow with broken SO(n+1) s…
