The Ricci flow in a class of solvmanifolds

In this paper, we study the Ricci flow of solvmanifolds whose Lie algebra has an abelian ideal of codimension one, by using the bracket flow. We prove that solutions to the Ricci flow are immortal, the ω-limit of bracket flow solutions is a single point, and that for any sequence of times there exists a subsequence in which the Ricci flow converges, in the pointed topology, to a manifold which is locally isometric to a flat manifold. We give a functional which is non-increasing along a normalized bracket flow that will allow us to prove that given a sequence of times, one can extract a subsequence converging to an algebraic soliton, and to determine which of these limits are flat. Finally, we use these results to prove that if a Lie group in this class admits a Riemannian metric of negative sectional curvature, then the curvature of any Ricci flow solution will become negative in finite time.     

Ricci flow on a 3-manifold with positive scalar curvature

In this paper we consider Hamilton's Ricci flow on a 3-manifold with a metric of positive scalar curvature. We establish several a priori estimates for the Ricci flow which we believe are important in understanding possible singularities of the Ricci flow. For Ricci flow with initial metric of positive scalar curvature, we obtain a sharp estimate on the norm of the Ricci curvature in terms of the scalar curvature (which is not trivial even if the initial metric has non-negative Ricci curvature, a fact which is essential in Hamilton's estimates [R.S. Hamilton, Three-manifolds with positive Ricci curvature, J. Differential Geom. 17 (1982) 255-306]), some L²-estimates for the gradients of the Ricci curvature, and finally the Harnack type estimates for the Ricci curvature. These results are established through careful (and rather complicated and lengthy) computations, integration by parts and the maximum principles for parabolic equations.     

Ricci Yang-Mills flow on surfaces

We study the behavior of the Ricci Yang-Mills flow for U(1) bundles on surfaces. By exploiting a coupling of the Liouville and Yang-Mills energies we show that existence for the flow reduces to a bound on the isoperimetric constant or the L⁴ norm of the bundle curvature. We furthermore completely describe the behavior of long time solutions of this flow on surfaces. Finally, in Appendix A we classify all gradient solitons of this flow on surfaces.     

Curvature estimates for the Ricci flow II

In this paper we present several curvature estimates and convergence results for solutions of the Ricci flow, including the volume normalized Ricci flow and the normalized Kähler-Ricci flow. The curvature estimates depend on smallness of certain local space-time integrals of the norm of the Riemann curvature tensor, while the convergence results require finiteness of space-time integrals of this norm. These results also serve as characterization of blow-up singularities.     

Poincaré, modified logarithmic Sobolev and isoperimetric inequalities for Markov chains with non-negative Ricci curvature

We study functional inequalities for Markov chains on discrete spaces with entropic Ricci curvature bounded from below. Our main results are that when curvature is non-negative, but not necessarily positive, the spectral gap, the Cheeger isoperimetric constant and the modified logarithmic Sobolev constant of the chain can be bounded from below by a constant that only depends on the diameter of the space, with respect to a suitable metric. These estimates are discrete analogues of classical results of Riemannian geometry obtained by Li and Yau, Buser and Wang.     

Ricci curvature in the neighborhood of rank-one symmetric spaces

We study the Ricci curvature of a Riemannian metric as a differential operator acting on the space of metrics close (in a weighted functional spaces topology) to the standard metric of a rank-one noncompact symmetric space. We prove that any symmetric bilinear field close enough to the standard may be realized as the Ricci curvature of a unique close metric if its decay rate at infinity (its weight) belongs to some precisely known interval. We also study what happens if the decay rate is too small or too large.     

Space-time formulation of Harnack inequalities for curvature flows of hypersurfaces

We consider the motion of hypersurfaces in Riemannian manifolds by their curvature vectors. We show that the Harnack quadratic is an affine second fundamental form of the space-time track of the hypersurface. Given a solution to the Ricci flow, we show that with respect to an appropriate metric on space-time, the space-slices evolve by mean curvature flow. This enables us to identify the Harnack quadratic for the mean curvature flow with the trace Harnack quadratic for the Ricci flow.     

Normalized Ricci flow on nonparabolic surfaces

This paper studies the normalized Ricci flow on a nonparabolic surface, whose scalar curvature is asymptotically –1 in an integral sense. By a method initiated by R. Hamilton, the flow is shown to converge to a metric of constant scalar curvature –1. A relative estimate of Green’s function is proved as a tool.      

Short-time existence of solutions to the cross curvature flow on 3-manifolds

Given a compact 3-manifold with an initial Riemannian metric of positive (or negative) sectional curvature, we prove the short-time existence of a solution to the cross curvature flow. This is achieved using an idea first introduced by DeTurck (1983) in his work establishing the short-time existence of solutions to the Ricci flow.

     

Mixed initial boundary value problem for hyperbolic geometric flow on Riemann surfaces

The hyperbolic geometric flow equations is introduced recently by Kong and Liu motivated by Einstein equation and Hamilton Ricci flow. In this paper, we consider the mixed initial boundary value problem for hyperbolic geometric flow, and prove the global existence of classical solutions. The results show that, for any given initial metric on R² in certain class of metric, one can always choose suitable initial velocity symmetric tensor such that the solutions exist, and the scalar curvature corresponding to the solution metric gij keeps bounded. If the initial velocity tensor does not satisfy the certain conditions, the solutions will blow up at a finite time. Some special explicit solutions to the reduced equation are given.     

Curvature estimates for the Ricci flow I

In this paper we present several curvature estimates for solutions of the Ricci flow and the modified Ricci flow (including the volume normalized Ricci flow and the normalized Kähler-Ricci flow), which depend on the smallness of certain local \(L^{\frac{n}{2}}\) integrals of the norm of the Riemann curvature tensor |Rm|, where n denotes the dimension of themanifold. These local integrals are scaling invariant and very natural.     

Ricci curvature of Markov chains on metric spaces

We define the coarse Ricci curvature of metric spaces in terms of how much small balls are closer (in Wasserstein transportation distance) than their centers are. This definition naturally extends to any Markov chain on a metric space. For a Riemannian manifold this gives back, after scaling, the value of Ricci curvature of a tangent vector. Examples of positively curved spaces for this definition include the discrete cube and discrete versions of the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. Moreover this generalization is consistent with the Bakry-Émery Ricci curvature for Brownian motion with a drift on a Riemannian manifold.Positive Ricci curvature is shown to imply a spectral gap, a Lévy-Gromov-like Gaussian concentration theorem and a kind of modified logarithmic Sobolev inequality. The bounds obtained are sharp in a variety of examples.     

Stability and geometric properties of constant weighted mean curvature hypersurfaces in gradient Ricci solitons

In this paper, we study stability properties of hypersurfaces with constant weighted mean curvature (CWMC) in gradient Ricci solitons. The CWMC hypersurfaces generalize the f-minimal hypersurfaces and appear naturally in the isoperimetric problems in smooth metric measure spaces. We obtain a result about the relationship between the properness and extrinsic volume growth under the assumption of a limitation for the weighted mean curvature of the immersion. Moreover, we estimate Morse index for CWMC hypersurfaces in terms of the dimension of the space of parallel vector fields restricted to hypersurface.     

The Sasaki–Ricci Flow and Compact Sasaki Manifolds of Positive Transverse Holomorphic Bisectional Curvature

We show that Perelman’s ${\mathcal{W}}$ functional on Kähler manifolds has a natural counterpart on Sasaki manifolds. We prove, using this functional, that Perelman’s results on Kähler–Ricci flow (the first Chern class is positive) can be generalized to Sasaki–Ricci flow, including the uniform bound on the diameter and the scalar curvature along the flow. We also show that positivity of transverse bisectional curvature is preserved along Sasaki–Ricci flow, using Bando and Mok’s methods and results in Kähler–Ricci flow. In particular, we show that the Sasaki–Ricci flow converges to a Sasaki–Ricci soliton when the initial metric has nonnegative transverse bisectional curvature.     

Lévy-Gromov's isoperimetric inequality for an infinite dimensional diffusion generator

We establish, by simple semigroup arguments, a Lévy-Gromov isoperimetric inequality for the invariant measure of an infinite dimensional diffusion generator of positive curvature with isoperimetric model the Gaussian measure. This produces in particular a new proof of the Gaussian, isoperimetric inequality. This isoperimetric inequality strengthens the classical logarithmic Sobolev inequality in this context. A local version for the heat kernel measures is also proved, which may then be extended into an isoperimetric inequality for the Wiener measure on the paths of a Riemannian manifold with bounded Ricci curvature.Oblatum 19-VI-1995     

Lévy–Gromov’s isoperimetric inequality for an infinite dimensional diffusion generator

 We establish, by simple semigroup arguments, a Lévy–Gromov isoperimetric inequality for the invariant measure of an infinite dimensional diffusion generator of positive curvature with isoperimetric model the Gaussian measure. This produces in particular a new proof of the Gaussian isoperimetric inequality. This isoperimetric inequality strengthens the classical logarithmic Sobolev inequality in this context. A local version for the heat kernel measures is also proved, which may then be extended into an isoperimetric inequality for the Wiener measure on the paths of a Riemannian manifold with bounded Ricci curvature. Oblatum 19-VI-1995     

Scalar curvature rigidity and Ricci DeTurck flow on perturbations of Euclidean space

We prove a rigidity result for non-negative scalar curvature perturbations of the Euclidean metric on \(\mathbb {R}^n\), which may be regarded as a weak version of the rigidity statement of the positive mass theorem. We prove our result by analyzing long time solutions of Ricci DeTurck flow. As a byproduct in doing so, we extend known \(L^p\) bounds and decay rates for Ricci DeTurck flow and prove regularity of the flow at the initial data.     

Generalized Cheeger-Gromoll metrics and the Hopf map

We show that there exists a family of Riemannian metrics on the tangent bundle of a two-sphere, which induces metrics of constant curvature on its unit tangent bundle. In other words, given such a metric on the tangent bundle of a two-sphere, the Hopf map is identified with a Riemannian submersion from the universal covering space of the unit tangent bundle, equipped with the induced metric, onto the two-sphere. A hyperbolic counterpart dealing with the tangent bundle of a hyperbolic plane is also presented.     

Normalized Ricci flows and conformally compact Einstein metrics

In this paper, we investigate the behavior of the normalized Ricci flow on asymptotically hyperbolic manifolds. We show that the normalized Ricci flow exists globally and converges to an Einstein metric when starting from a non-degenerate and sufficiently Ricci pinched metric. More importantly we use maximum principles to establish the regularity of conformal compactness along the normalized Ricci flow including that of the limit metric at time infinity. Therefore we are able to recover the existence results in Graham and Lee (Adv Math 87:186–255, 1991), Lee (Fredholm Operators and Einstein Metrics on Conformally Compact Manifolds, 2006), and Biquard (Surveys in Differential Geometry: Essays on Einstein Manifolds, 1999) of conformally compact Einstein metrics with conformal infinities which are perturbations of that of given non-degenerate conformally compact Einstein metrics.     

Ricci Flow and the Determinant of the Laplacian on Non-Compact Surfaces

On compact surfaces with or without boundary, Osgood, Phillips and Sarnak proved that the maximum of the determinant of the Laplacian within a conformal class of metrics with fixed area occurs at a metric of constant curvature and, for negative Euler characteristic, exhibited a flow from a given metric to a constant curvature metric along which the determinant increases. The aim of this paper is to perform a similar analysis for the determinant of the Laplacian on a non-compact surface whose ends are asymptotic to hyperbolic funnels or cusps. In that context, we show that the Ricci flow converges to a metric of constant curvature and that the determinant increases along this flow.