Paper · Jul 3, 2026

Unique asymptotics of symmetric ancient ovals of Ricci flow

Panagiota Daskalopoulos, Wenkui Du, Natasa Sesum, Ziyi Zhao

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Abstract

We obtain the unique asymptotics of -invariant, compact, simply-connected, factorwisely non-self-similar -dimensional -solutions of the Ricci flow , where and . More precisely, these -solutions are either ancient ovals of the Ricci flow that are diffeomorphic to the standard sphere , having a positive curvature operator metric and a cylindrical tangent flow at , or they are a Riemannian product of a Perelman's ancient oval and a shrinking round sphere. The metric of every -invariant ancient oval is represented in the form (up to flipping and ). We obtain results about the blowdown limits of such solutions, establish the unique sharp asymptotics of the profile function , and prove that the uniqueness of implies the uniqueness of . In particular, this provides the first instance of a classification result for geometric flows represented by a coupled PDE system, opening new avenues for studying the classification of higher-dimensional -solutions of the Ricci flow.

Comments: 83 pages, comments are welcome. Revised proofs in Section 2 and added several lemmas and propositions; main results unchanged

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The 8 papers on this site closest to this one, judged by the topics they share, the words and phrases in their titles and abstracts, and their authors. They are not its citations, but a map of the work around it. Papers here go back to 2021, plus the canon.

Connected papers This paper in the centre and the 8 papers closest to it around it, in date order clockwise from the top. The closer a paper sits to the centre, the stronger the connection. This paper Hearing the shape of ancient noncollapsed flows in ℝ⁴ (Wenkui Du and Robert Haslhofer, 2021)7Du 2021 Classification of bubble-sheet ovals in ℝ⁴ (Beomjun Choi, Panagiota Daskalopoulos, Wenkui Du et al., 2022)1Choi 2022 Dynamics of Convex Mean Curvature Flow (Sigurd Angenent, Panagiota Daskalopoulos and Natasa Sesum, 2023)6Angenent 2023 Unique Asymptotics of Steady Ricci Solitons with Symmetry (Zilu Ma, Hamidreza Mahmoudian and Natasa Sesum, 2023)4Ma 2023 Rigidity of ancient ovals in higher dimensional mean curvature flow (Beomjun Choi, Wenkui Du and Jingze Zhu, 2025)5Choi 2025 Mean curvature flow near a peanut solution (Sigurd Angenent, Panagiota Daskalopoulos and Natasa Sesum, 2025)3Angenent 2025 Classification of ancient ovals in higher dimensional mean curvature flow (Beomjun Choi, Wenkui Du and Ziyi Zhao, 2026)2Choi 2026 Uniqueness of positively curved ancient Ricci flows on surfaces with boundary (Kyeongho Bang, Eric Chen and Wenkui Du, 2026)8Bang 2026
Closer to the centre: more closely connected. Clockwise from the top: oldest to newest. Ricci flowWider flowsalso connected to each other
  1. Classification of bubble-sheet ovals in

    Beomjun Choi, Panagiota Daskalopoulos, Wenkui Du et al.Wider flows PDF

    Topics Ancient solutions · Same authors Panagiota Daskalopoulos, Wenkui Du, Natasa Sesum · Shared terms “ancient ovals”, “symmetric ancient”, “instance”

  2. Classification of ancient ovals in higher dimensional mean curvature flow

    Beomjun Choi, Wenkui Du and Ziyi ZhaoWider flows PDF

    Topics Ancient solutions · Same authors Wenkui Du, Ziyi Zhao · Shared terms “ancient ovals”, “higher dimensional”, “asymptotics”

  3. Mean curvature flow near a peanut solution

    Sigurd Angenent, Panagiota Daskalopoulos and Natasa SesumWider flows PDF

    Topics Ancient solutions, Singularities, Stability & uniqueness · Same authors Panagiota Daskalopoulos, Natasa Sesum · Shared terms “ancient ovals”, “tangent flow”

  4. Unique Asymptotics of Steady Ricci Solitons with Symmetry

    Zilu Ma, Hamidreza Mahmoudian and Natasa Sesum PDF

    Topics Ancient solutions · Same author Natasa Sesum · Shared terms “unique asymptotics”

  5. Rigidity of ancient ovals in higher dimensional mean curvature flow

    Beomjun Choi, Wenkui Du and Jingze ZhuWider flows PDF

    Topics Ancient solutions, Singularities, Stability & uniqueness · Same author Wenkui Du · Shared terms “ancient ovals”, “symmetric ancient”, “higher dimensional”

  6. Dynamics of Convex Mean Curvature Flow

    Sigurd Angenent, Panagiota Daskalopoulos and Natasa SesumWider flows PDF

    Topics Ancient solutions, Stability & uniqueness · Same authors Panagiota Daskalopoulos, Natasa Sesum

  7. Hearing the shape of ancient noncollapsed flows in

    Wenkui Du and Robert HaslhoferWider flows PDF

    Topics Ancient solutions, Singularities · Same author Wenkui Du · Shared terms “ancient ovals”, “symmetric ancient”, “asymptotics”

  8. Uniqueness of positively curved ancient Ricci flows on surfaces with boundary

    Kyeongho Bang, Eric Chen and Wenkui Du PDF

    Topics Ancient solutions, Singularities, Stability & uniqueness · Same author Wenkui Du · Shared terms “instance”

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Background reading

The guides for the topics of this paper: what each idea is, why it matters, and the papers to read first.

In the guidebook

  1. 11A.11
    Hamilton’s 1982 TheoremBook 11A · The Ricci Flow: Existence and Maximum Principles

    Positive Ricci curvature in dimension 3 flows to a round metric.

  2. 12B.3
    The Structure of κ-SolutionsBook 12B · κ-Solutions and Surgery

    Necks and caps, compactness, and universal estimates.

  3. 11B.4
    Blow-Ups, Blow-Downs and Splitting at InfinityBook 11B · Solitons, Compactness and Singularities

    Limits of rescaled manifolds and flows: why blow-up limits are nonnegatively curved, what blow-downs see, and how lines appear at infinity.