Smoothing metrics on closed Riemannian manifolds through the Ricci flow

Under the assumption of the uniform local Sobolev inequality, it is proved that Riemannian metrics with an absolute Ricci curvature bound and a small Riemannian curvature integral bound can be smoothed to having a sectional curvature bound. This partly extends previous a priori estimates of Li (J Geom Anal 17:495–511, 2007; Adv Math 223:1924–1957, 2010).