Compact gradient shrinking Ricci solitons with positive curvature operator

In this article, we first derive several identities on a compact shrinking Ricci soliton. We then show that a compact gradient shrinking soliton must be Einstein, if it admits a Riemannian metric with positive curvature operator and satisfies an integral inequality. Furthermore, such a soliton must be of constant curvature.     

A gradient estimate for all positive solutions of the conjugate heat equation under Ricci flow

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 the derivatives of the potential (scalar curvature) are needed. A classical Harnack inequality follows.     

On the essential spectrum of complete non-compact manifolds

In this paper, we prove that the Lp essential spectra of the Laplacian on functions are [0,+∞) on a non-compact complete Riemannian manifold with non-negative Ricci curvature at infinity. The similar method applies to gradient shrinking Ricci soliton, which is similar to non-compact manifold with non-negative Ricci curvature in many ways.     

Sharp upper diameter bounds for compact shrinking Ricci solitons

We give a sharp upper diameter bound for a compact shrinking Ricci soliton in terms of its scalar curvature integral and the Perelman’s entropy functional. The sharp cases could occur at round spheres. The proof mainly relies on a sharp logarithmic Sobolev inequality of gradient shrinking Ricci solitons and a Vitali-type covering argument.

     

Evolution equation of the Gauss curvature under hypersurface flows and its applications

In this paper, we derive evolution equation of the integral of the Gauss curvature on an evolving hypersurface. As an application, we obtain a monotone quantity on the level surface of the potential function on a 3-dimensional steady gradient Ricci soliton with positive sectional curvature, and prove that such a soliton is rotationally symmetric outside of a compact set under a curvature decaying assumption. Along the way we will also apply our evolution equation to some other cases.     

Gap theorems for Kähler-Ricci solitons

In this paper, we prove that a gradient shrinking compact K?hler-Ricci soliton cannot have too large Ricci curvature unless it is K?hler-Einstein. Received: 23 October 2007, Revised: 28 February 2008     

Positive curvature property for some hypoelliptic heat kernels

In this note, we look at some hypoelliptic operators arising from nilpotent rank 2 Lie algebras. In particular, we concentrate on the diffusion generated by three Brownian motions and their three Lévy areas, which is the simplest extension of the Laplacian on the Heisenberg group H. In order to study contraction properties of the heat kernel, we show that, as in the case of the Heisenberg group, the restriction of the sub-Laplace operator acting on radial functions (which are defined in some precise way in the core of the paper) satisfies a non-negative Ricci curvature condition (more precisely a CD(0,∞) inequality), whereas the operator itself does not satisfy any CD(r,∞) inequality. From this we may deduce some useful, sharp gradient bounds for the associated heat kernel.     

Ricci Curvature and Bochner Formulas for Martingales

We generalize the classical Bochner formula for the heat flow on M to martingales on the path space PM and develop a formalism to compute evolution equations for martingales on path space. We see that our Bochner formula on PM is related to two‐sided bounds on Ricci curvature in much the same manner that the classical Bochner formula on M is related to lower bounds on Ricci curvature. Using this formalism, we obtain new characterizations of bounded Ricci curvature, new gradient estimates for martingales on path space, new Hessian estimates for martingales on path space, and streamlined proofs of the previous characterizations of bounded Ricci curvature.© 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Differential Harnack estimates for backward heat equations with potentials under the Ricci flow

In this paper, we derive a general evolution formula for possible Harnack quantities. As a consequence, we prove several differential Harnack inequalities for positive solutions of backward heat-type equations with potentials (including the conjugate heat equation) under the Ricci flow. We shall also derive Perelman's Harnack inequality for the fundamental solution of the conjugate heat equation under the Ricci flow.     

Heat kernel bounds, ancient κ solutions and the Poincaré conjecture

We establish certain Gaussian type upper bound for the heat kernel of the conjugate heat equation associated with 3-dimensional ancient κ solutions to the Ricci flow. As an application, using the W entropy associated with the heat kernel, we give a different and much shorter proof of Perelman's classification of backward limits of these ancient solutions. The method is partly motivated by Cao (2007) [1] and Sesum (2006) [27]. The current paper or Chow and Lu (2004) [6] combined with Chen and Zhu (2006) [4] and Zhang (2009) [31] lead to a simplified proof of the Poincaré conjecture without using reduced distance and reduced volume.     

Displacement convexity of generalized relative entropies

We investigate the m-relative entropy, which stems from the Bregman divergence, on weighted Riemannian and Finsler manifolds. We prove that the displacement K-convexity of the m-relative entropy is equivalent to the combination of the nonnegativity of the weighted Ricci curvature and the K-convexity of the weight function. We use this to show appropriate variants of the Talagrand, HWI and the logarithmic Sobolev inequalities, as well as the concentration of measures. We also prove that the gradient flow of the m-relative entropy produces a solution to the porous medium equation or the fast diffusion equation.     

Remarks on noncompact steady gradient Ricci solitons

Assume Mⁿ{\mathcal{M}^n} is a complete noncompact steady gradient Ricci soliton with positive Ricci curvature. First, by deriving a useful formula we characterize the condition of the scalar curvature and the potential function having a same level surface. Then, we assume the dimension n = 3 and characterize the rotational symmetry geometrically. Finally, for all dimensions n ≥ 3, we prove a dimension reduction result at spatial infinity under additional assumptions that Mⁿ{\mathcal M^n} is a κ-solution and the scalar curvature is O(\frac1r),{O\left(\frac{1}{r}\right),} where r is the distance function.     

关于完备收缩的Ricci-harmonic孤子的研究

本文研究了收缩的Ricci-harmonic孤子的几何性质的问题.利用文献[4]在Ricci孤子下的方法,获得了每个紧致Ricci-harmonic孤子是一个梯度孤子的结论,推广了Perelman等人在Ricci孤子下的结果.此外,利用文献[14]在Ricci孤子下的方法,获得了完备非紧梯度收缩的Ricci-harmonic孤子具有比至多欧氏增长更加精确的体积增长估计的结果,推广了文献[14]在Ricci孤子下的结果.     

On Gradient Ricci Solitons

In the first part of the paper we derive integral curvature estimates for complete gradient shrinking Ricci solitons. Our results and the recent work in M. Fernandez-Lopez and E. Garcia-Rio, Rigidity of shrinking Ricci solitons in Math. Z. (2011) classify complete gradient shrinking Ricci solitons with harmonic Weyl tensor. In the second part of the paper we address the issue of existence of harmonic functions on gradient shrinking Kähler and gradient steady Ricci solitons. Consequences to the structure of shrinking and steady solitons at infinity are also discussed.     

Gradient shrinking Ricci solitons of half harmonic Weyl curvature

Gradient Ricci solitons and metrics with half harmonic Weyl curvature are two natural generalizations of Einstein metrics on four-manifolds. In this paper we prove that if a metric has structures of both gradient shrinking Ricci soliton and half harmonic Weyl curvature, then except for three examples, it has to be an Einstein metric with positive scalar curvature. Precisely, we prove that a four-dimensional gradient shrinking Ricci soliton with \(\delta W^{\pm }=0\) is either Einstein, or a finite quotient of \(S^3\times \mathbb {R}\), \(S^2\times \mathbb {R}^2\) or \(\mathbb {R}^4\). We also prove that a four-dimensional gradient Ricci soliton with constant scalar curvature is either Kähler–Einstein, or a finite quotient of \(M\times \mathbb {C}\), where M is a Riemann surface. The method of our proof is to construct a weighted subharmonic function using curvature decompositions and the Weitzenböck formula for half Weyl curvature, and the method was motivated by previous work (Gursky and LeBrun in Ann Glob Anal Geom 17:315–328, 1999; Wu in Einstein four-manifolds of three-nonnegative curvature operator 2013; Trans Am Math Soc 369:1079–1096, 2017; Yang in Invent Math 142:435–450, 2000) on the rigidity of Einstein four-manifolds with positive sectional curvature, and previous work (Cao and Chen in Trans Am Math Soc 364:2377–2391, 2012; Duke Math J 162:1003–1204, 2013; Catino in Math Ann 35:629–635, 2013) on the rigidity of gradient Ricci solitons.     

Certain Contact Metrics as Ricci Almost Solitons

We show that if a compact K-contact metric is a gradient Ricci almost soliton, then it is isometric to a unit sphere S ²ⁿ⁺¹. Next, we prove that if the metric of a non-Sasakian (κ, μ)-contact metric is a gradient Ricci almost soliton, then in dimension 3 it is flat and in higher dimensions it is locally isometric to E ⁿ⁺¹ ×  S ⁿ (4). Finally, a couple of results on contact metric manifolds whose metric is a Ricci almost soliton and the potential vector field is point wise collinear with the Reeb vector field of the contact metric structure were obtained.     

Maximum principles and gradient Ricci solitons

It is shown that the Omori-Yau maximum principle holds true on complete gradient shrinking Ricci solitons both for the Laplacian and the f-Laplacian. As an application, curvature estimates and rigidity results for shrinking Ricci solitons are obtained. Furthermore, applications of maximum principles are also given in the steady and expanding situations.     

Addenda to “The entropy formula for linear heat equation”

We add two sections to [8] and answer some questions asked there. In the first section we give another derivation of Theorem 1.1 of [8], which reveals the relation between the entropy formula, (1.4) of [8], and the well-known Li-Yau ’s gradient estimate. As a by-product we obtain the sharp estimates on ‘Nash’s entropy’ for manifolds with nonnegative Ricci curvature. We also show that the equality holds in Li-Yau’s gradient estimate, for some positive solution to the heat equation, at some positive time, implies that the complete Riemannian manifold with nonnegative Ricci curvature is isometric to ℝ ⁿ .In the second section we derive a dual entropy formula which, to some degree, connects Hamilton’s entropy with Perelman ’s entropy in the case of Riemann surfaces.     

Bach-flat gradient steady Ricci solitons

In this paper we prove that any n-dimensional (n ≥ 4) complete Bach-flat gradient steady Ricci soliton with positive Ricci curvature is isometric to the Bryant soliton. We also show that a three-dimensional gradient steady Ricci soliton with divergence-free Bach tensor is either flat or isometric to the Bryant soliton. In particular, these results improve the corresponding classification theorems for complete locally conformally flat gradient steady Ricci solitons in Cao and Chen (Trans Am Math Soc 364:2377–2391, 2012) and Catino and Mantegazza (Ann Inst Fourier 61(4):1407–1435, 2011).     

On the Chern‐Ricci flow and its solitons for Lie groups

This paper is concerned with Chern‐Ricci flow evolution of left‐invariant hermitian structures on Lie groups. We study the behavior of a solution, as t is approaching the first time singularity, by rescaling in order to prevent collapsing and obtain convergence in the pointed (or Cheeger‐Gromov) sense to a Chern‐Ricci soliton. We give some results on the Chern‐Ricci form and the Lie group structure of the pointed limit in terms of the starting hermitian metric and, as an application, we obtain a complete picture for the class of solvable Lie groups having a codimension one normal abelian subgroup. We have also found a Chern‐Ricci soliton hermitian metric on most of the complex surfaces which are solvmanifolds, including an unexpected shrinking soliton example.