As on arXiv
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
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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.
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A Lean Formalization of the Hamilton–Perelman Proof of the Three-Dimensional Poincaré Conjecture
Topics 3-manifolds, Singularities · Same authors Bennett Chow, Yuan Liao, Ziyang Qin · Shared terms “Lean formalization”, “Hamilton”
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A Lean Formalization of the Hamilton–Perelman Proof of Thurston's Geometrization Conjecture
Topics Ricci flow · Same authors Bennett Chow, Yuan Liao, Ziyang Qin · Shared terms “Lean formalization”, “Hamilton”, “Lean declaration”
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Lower bounds for the scalar curvatures of Ricci flow singularity models
Topics Limit spaces & RCD, Singularities · Same author Bennett Chow · Shared terms “Hamilton”, “Cheeger”, “compactness”
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Three-manifolds with non-negatively pinched Ricci curvature
Topics Curvature pinching, 3-manifolds · Shared terms “Hamilton”, “preservation”
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Chern holonomy under the first and second Chern–Ricci flows
Topics Singularities · Same author Yuan Liao · Shared terms “preservation”
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Removing scalar curvature assumption for Ricci flow smoothing
Topics Harmonic maps & DeTurck trick, Limit spaces & RCD, Singularities · Shared terms “short time”, “time existence”, “compactness”
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A mean curvature flow approach to Hamilton's pinching theorem
Topics Curvature pinching · Shared terms “Hamilton”
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Structure theory of non-collapsed limits of Ricci flows
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
- 12B.6Bounded Curvature at Bounded Distance
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).
- 11A.7Maximum Principles under Ricci Flow
Scalar and tensor maximum principles, and preserved curvature conditions.
- 6A.9Reaction–Diffusion: Fronts, Patterns and Pinching
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.