Hamilton's nonexistence conjecture for Type I-like ancient Ricci flows

A complete noncompact ancient solution to the Ricci flow is a Ricci flow (Mn,g(t))(\mathcal{M}^{n},g(t)) defined for <t<ω-\infty<t<\omega on a complete noncompact manifold. It is Type-I like if

supMn×(,0]tRm(x,t)<.\sup_{\mathcal{M}^{n}\times(-\infty,0]}|t|\,|\operatorname{Rm}(x,t)|<\infty.

Assume the solution has bounded positive curvature operator. Hamilton's conjecture. There does not exist a complete noncompact ancient Type-I-like solution to the Ricci flow with bounded positive curvature operator.

The conjecture asserts that curvature cannot remain both bounded in the Type-I sense and positive on a complete noncompact ancient solution. In the paper's setting, the cited theorem proves the corresponding nonexistence conclusion in dimension three under bounded positive sectional curvature, so the status of the general conjecture is not resolved by that result.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Bennett Chow and Peng Lu, “On the asymptotic scalar curvature ratio of complete Type I-like ancient solutions to the Ricci flow on non-compact 3-manifolds”, arXiv:math/0211194 (2002).

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