Paper · Aug 21, 2026

A Lean Formalization of Hamilton's Three-Manifold Theorem

Bennett Chow, Yuan Liao, Ziyang Qin

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Abstract

We describe a Lean formalization of Hamilton's 1982 theorem on closed, connected three-manifolds with positive Ricci curvature. The development contains a short-time existence theorem for Ricci flow and substantial geometric-analysis infrastructure: Riemannian tensor calculus, the Levi–Civita connection, Ricci-flow evolution equations, scalar and tensor maximum principles, three-dimensional curvature algebra, preservation of Ricci pinching, and Hamilton's improved pinching estimate. The formalization follows an alternative blow-up route, rather than Hamilton's original normalized-flow proof. Its time-uniform short-time existence, maximal continuation, no-local-collapsing, and Cheeger–Gromov–Hamilton compactness pipelines have been formalized and are included in the artifact, while we give only a brief account of these companion developments and record the interfaces and consequences used by the Hamilton argument; a detailed exposition of their full constructions is deferred to the second author's forthcoming thesis. We interweave representative Lean declarations with their mathematical meaning and record the status and provenance of every major component. All source-level status claims are tied to the source release identified below.

Comments: 78 pages. Comments welcome

Its neighbourhood

Connected papers

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 Structure theory of non-collapsed limits of Ricci flows (Richard H Bamler, 2020)8Bamler 2020 Three-manifolds with non-negatively pinched Ricci curvature (Man-Chun Lee and Peter M. Topping, 2022)4Lee 2022 Lower bounds for the scalar curvatures of Ricci flow singularity models (Pak-Yeung Chan, Bennett Chow, Zilu Ma et al., 2022)3Chan 2022 Removing scalar curvature assumption for Ricci flow smoothing (Adam Martens, 2024)6Martens 2024 A mean curvature flow approach to Hamilton's pinching theorem (Liang Cheng and Zhenyu Lu, 2026)7Cheng 2026 A Lean Formalization of the Hamilton–Perelman Proof of the Three-Dimensional Poincaré Conjecture (Ziyang Qin, Yuan Liao, Ayush Khaitan et al., 2026)1Qin 2026 A Lean Formalization of the Hamilton–Perelman Proof of Thurston's Geometrization Conjecture (Yuan Liao, Ziyang Qin, Jui-Hui Chung et al., 2026)2Liao 2026 Chern holonomy under the first and second Chern–Ricci flows (Yuan Liao, 2026)5Liao 2026
Closer to the centre: more closely connected. Clockwise from the top: oldest to newest. Ricci flowWider flowsalso connected to each other
  1. A Lean Formalization of the Hamilton–Perelman Proof of the Three-Dimensional Poincaré Conjecture

    Ziyang Qin, Yuan Liao, Ayush Khaitan et al. PDF

    Topics 3-manifolds, Singularities · Same authors Bennett Chow, Yuan Liao, Ziyang Qin · Shared terms “Lean formalization”, “Hamilton”

  2. A Lean Formalization of the Hamilton–Perelman Proof of Thurston's Geometrization Conjecture

    Yuan Liao, Ziyang Qin, Jui-Hui Chung et al. PDF

    Topics Ricci flow · Same authors Bennett Chow, Yuan Liao, Ziyang Qin · Shared terms “Lean formalization”, “Hamilton”, “Lean declaration”

  3. Lower bounds for the scalar curvatures of Ricci flow singularity models

    Pak-Yeung Chan, Bennett Chow, Zilu Ma et al. PDF

    Topics Limit spaces & RCD, Singularities · Same author Bennett Chow · Shared terms “Hamilton”, “Cheeger”, “compactness”

  4. Three-manifolds with non-negatively pinched Ricci curvature

    Man-Chun Lee and Peter M. Topping PDF

    Topics Curvature pinching, 3-manifolds · Shared terms “Hamilton”, “preservation”

  5. Chern holonomy under the first and second Chern–Ricci flows

    Yuan Liao PDF

    Topics Singularities · Same author Yuan Liao · Shared terms “preservation”

  6. Removing scalar curvature assumption for Ricci flow smoothing

    Adam Martens PDF

    Topics Harmonic maps & DeTurck trick, Limit spaces & RCD, Singularities · Shared terms “short time”, “time existence”, “compactness”

  7. A mean curvature flow approach to Hamilton's pinching theorem

    Liang Cheng and Zhenyu LuWider flows PDF

    Topics Curvature pinching · Shared terms “Hamilton”

  8. Structure theory of non-collapsed limits of Ricci flows

    Richard H BamlerThe canon PDF

    Topics (Non)collapsing, Limit spaces & RCD, 3-manifolds

Read around it

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. 12B.6
    Bounded Curvature at Bounded DistanceBook 12B · κ-Solutions and Surgery

    The heart of the canonical neighbourhood proof: why curvature at bounded rescaled distance from a point of high curvature stays bounded, via incomplete limits, cones and Hamilton–Ivey pinching (Morgan–Tian, chapter 10).

  2. 11A.7
    Maximum Principles under Ricci FlowBook 11A · The Ricci Flow: Existence and Maximum Principles

    Scalar and tensor maximum principles, and preserved curvature conditions.

  3. 6A.9
    Reaction–Diffusion: Fronts, Patterns and PinchingBook 6A · The Heat Equation and Its Relatives

    Critical patch size, travelling fronts and their speeds, bistable waves and the Allen–Cahn equation, Turing patterns, and the curvature of a Ricci flow as a reaction–diffusion system.