Limit spaces & RCD

As a metric measure space possessing positive Bakry-Émery curvature, a Ricci shrinker with potential function $f$ admits a heat kernel $H_f$ under the weighted volume measure $e^{-f}dv$. In this paper, we study $H_f$ systematically and establish a series of fundamental estimates. Moreover, we clarify the equivalence between $H_f$ and the spacetime heat kernel $H(x,t;y,s)$ under Ricci flow induced by a Ricci shrinker. Inspired by this relation, we extend corresponding analysis tools of Ricci flows to Ricci shrinker metric measure spaces, such as Nash entropy and reduced distance. As a direct application, we prove that $\left|\nabla R\right|=o(f^{3/2})$ implies $R=o(f)$.

Let $S$ be a Kato surface and $D$ its maximal reduced divisor of rational curves. On $S\setminus D$ we construct Hermitian metrics which are flat along the leaves of the canonical foliation and study their evolution under the Chern-Ricci flow. For Enoki surfaces, we construct an immortal normalised solution which, on every compact sublevel of the natural exhaustion, converges in the Gromov-Hausdorff sense to the elliptic base endowed with an explicit flat metric. For Kato surfaces of intermediate type, the affine Green model and its finite-index extension give, under the assumption $0<\mu <2$, an explicit normalised solution which, on every compact Green block, collapses in the Gromov-Hausdorff sense to a circle. In the Enoki case the limiting area is $2\pi b_2(S)$; in the intermediate case the length of the limiting circle is determined by the Green and leafwise monodromies.

In this note, we study volume comparison for 3-manifolds with 2-Ricci curvature lower bound. We establish monotonicity and rigidity for geodesic sphere area and ball volume, and derive the pointed Gromov-Hausdorff precompactness under a uniform lower bound on the conjugate radius for 3-manifolds with 2-Ricci curvature lower bound. We also discuss the almost preservation of 2-Ricci curvature lower bound and the local non-collapsing propagation along Ricci flow. Finally, we point out a topological rigidity result on nonnegative scalar curvature.

We determine the long-time behavior of the canonical Ricci flow on a closed three-manifold of Thurston type ${\mathbb{R}}^3$, Nil, or Sol, starting from an arbitrary initial metric. In the Euclidean case, the metric $g(t)$ converges exponentially fast to a flat metric. The Gromov–Hausdorff limit of $(M,t^{-1}g(t))$ is a point in the Euclidean and Nil cases, and a metric circle or a compact interval of positive length in the Sol case. In all three cases, the blowdown flows lifted to the universal cover, $s^{-1}\tilde{g}(s\tau )$, converge, in the pointed Cheeger–Hamilton sense, to an explicit homogeneous expanding Ricci soliton solution.

Adapting ideas of, we show that compact generalized Ricci solitons (GRS) have positive Yamabe invariant. We observe a Cheeger-Gromoll-type splitting theorem for GRS as a corollary of the splitting theorem for Bakry-Émery Ricci curvature in. Using this we show that low dimensional GRS are diffeomorphic to $S^3/\Gamma$ or $S^3\times S^1/\Gamma$. We determine various topological constraints on string backgrounds (Bismut-Hermitian-Einstein (BHE), strong torsion $G_2$, strong torsion $\mathrm{Spin}(7)$-manifolds) and show in most cases that they cannot exist on the same manifolds as their classical special holonomy counterparts. Finally we determine the topology of BHE threefolds under natural constraints, relying on an extension of parts of Kollar's characterization of Seifert fibered $5$-manifolds over complex orbifolds.

We prove that every compact four-dimensional weakly Einstein Ricci soliton is Einstein. The nontrivial compact case reduces to the gradient shrinking setting, where a differential identity for weakly Einstein four-manifolds, together with the curvature identity for gradient Ricci solitons, yields the pointwise relation $|R{|}^2\nabla f=0$ for the soliton potential $f$. Consequently, no compact proper weakly Einstein four-manifold admits a Ricci soliton structure. A noncompact homogeneous example shows that the compactness assumption is essential.

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.

For a closed connected Riemannian manifold $(M,g)$, the Gigli–Mantegazza construction pulls back the quadratic Wasserstein metric under the heat kernel embedding $x\mapsto p_t(x,\cdot )d{\mathrm{vol}}_g$. The resulting family ${\tilde{g}}_t$ agrees with Ricci flow to first order in $t$, but in general not to second order. We prove that $${\tilde{g}}_t=g-2t{\mathrm{Ric}}_g+t^2\left(-\Delta {\mathrm{Ric}}_g+2{\mathrm{Ric}}_g^2-\frac{2}{3}{\mathcal{Q}}_g\right)+O_{C^0}(t^3),$$ where ${\mathcal{Q}}_g$ is quadratic in the full curvature tensor. The term $-\Delta {\mathrm{Ric}}_g$ also occurs in the second-order expansion of Ricci flow, so the discrepancy depends pointwise and quadratically on the curvature. In particular, at a Ricci-flat metric that is not flat, Ricci flow is stationary while ${\tilde{g}}_t$ is not. The Gromov–Hausdorff distance between the Gigli–Mantegazza and Ricci-flow metrics is $O(t^2)$, and round spheres show that this estimate is sharp.

Starting from a closed, orientable three-dimensional Riemannian manifold, we consider the completion of the associated singular Ricci flow with respect to a natural spacetime distance. We show that this completion admits canonical intrinsic metrics on its time-slices, defined by conjugate heat kernel measures, and that these time-slices arise as metric limits of the regular part of the flow. More precisely, for any $t_0>0$ and any connected component $Z_{t_0}^{\prime }$ of the time-slice $Z_{t_0}$ of the completion, we prove that $$(\overline{{\mathcal{R}}_t^{\prime }},d_{g_t})\underset{t\nearrow t_0}{\overset{\mathrm{Gromov}\text{-}\mathrm{Hausdorff}}{\to }}(Z_{t_0}^{\prime },d_{t_0}^Z),$$ where ${\mathcal{R}}_t^{\prime }$ is the corresponding connected component of the regular part and $\overline{{\mathcal{R}}_t^{\prime }}$ denotes its metric completion. In particular, this yields the Gromov-Hausdorff convergence at the first singular time for closed three-dimensional Ricci flows. We also establish a refined structure theory for the singular set of the completion. In particular, the singular set is horizontally parabolic $1$-rectifiable, and its time image has vanishing $1/2$-dimensional Hausdorff measure. Moreover, on each time-slice, the singular set has Minkowski dimension at most $1$. The proof relies on heat kernel estimates for singular Ricci flows and the generalization of the structure theory of noncollapsed Ricci flow limit spaces.

In this work, we establish compactness and regularity results for complete gradient Laplacian solitons of closed $G_2$-structures. Under a lower scalar-curvature bound and a distance-dependent bound on the gradient of the soliton potential, we prove pointed measured Gromov-Hausdorff compactness. With a uniform lower bound for the localised Perelman entropy, the Gromov-Hausdorff convergence improves to pointed $C^{1,\alpha }$ convergence. Our principal result shows that this $C^{1,\alpha }$ convergence upgrades to smooth convergence on the regular set. More precisely, after passing to a subsequence, the metrics, the defining positive $3$-forms, and the soliton potentials converge smoothly on every compact subset of the regular set, and the limiting data define a gradient Laplacian soliton. The proof develops a local entropy method adapted to $G_2$-solitons. Since the available $C^{1,\alpha }$ control does not directly close an elliptic bootstrap for the $G_2$-soliton, and no suitable pseudolocality theorem is available in this setting, we instead use the localised Perelman's functionals. These yield an entropy $\epsilon$-regularity theorem and a gap theorem for scalar-flat solitons. On the regular set, pointed $C^{1,\alpha }$ convergence gives an almost-Euclidean local isoperimetric inequality, which in turn verifies the required small-entropy condition automatically. The resulting curvature bounds are then combined with $G_2$-specific differential identities and quantitative interior estimates to control the soliton data. Finally, at the critical exponent in dimension seven, we show that a uniform weighted $L^{\frac{7}{2}}$ -curvature bound then yields pointed $C^{\infty }$ compactness.

We prove uniform diameter estimates, volume non-collapsing estimates and Gromov-Hausdorff convergence for the normalized Chern-Ricci flow on smooth complex minimal surfaces of general type, starting from an arbitrary Hermitian metric. This removes the local Kahler assumption near the null locus used in our previous work and confirms the Tosatti-Weinkove conjecture in complex dimension two. The main analytic ingredients are a surface torsion estimate, a uniform total variation bound for Delta |G|, a Green-weighted L^2 estimate for the torsion, and a linear iteration of real Poisson equations, which together give the required Green function estimates.

In this paper, we first confirm the Hamilton-Tian conjecture for the Sasaki-Ricci flow in a compact transverse Fano quasi-regular Sasakian $5$-manifold with klt foliation singularities. Secondly, we derive the compactness theorem of Sasaki-Ricci solitons on transverse Fano quasi-regular Sasakian $5$-manifolds. Then,by the second Sasakian structure theorem, we confirm the Hamilton-Tian conjecture for a compact transverse Fano Sasakian $5$-manifold. With its applications, we show that the gradient Sasaki-Ricci soliton orbifold metric on a compact Sasakian $5$-manifold is Sasaki-Einstein if $M$ is transverse $K$-stable.

We establish a geometric correspondence between the Functional Renormalization Group (FRG) and a Ricci flow modified by a potential-driven diffeomorphism. By rewriting the Polchinski exact RG equation as an infinite-dimensional Fokker–Planck equation for field-distribution functionals, we show how a probability flow driven by a "thermodynamic" free-energy functional induces the evolution of the Fisher information metric on the coupling-constant manifold. Using the continuous scale-dissipation rate of this free-energy functional, we construct an RG-flow entropy functional that provides an infinite-dimensional counterpart of Perelman's $\mathcal{F}$-entropy. The parametric Hessian of this RG-flow entropy then encodes the scale deformation of the Fisher information metric, thereby linking the JKO–Wasserstein flow in field-configuration space to the geometry of the coupling-constant manifold. An emergent scalar information potential $\Phi$ encodes the potential-driven diffeomorphism component, restoring the tensorial form of the flow under reparametrizations of the coupling coordinates. In this representation, the successive integration of high-energy degrees of freedom effectively smooths out the curvature of the information manifold, so that RG fixed points are realized as steady Ricci soliton equilibria. These results connect quantum field theory, optimal transport, and Perelman's theory of geometric evolution, providing a geometric framework for characterizing the stability, universality, and topological structure of quantum field theories.

In this paper, we study 4-dimensional complete noncompact manifolds (M,g) satisfying Rm(g) $\in {\mathfrak{C}}_{\eta ,\mu }$ via Ricci flow. Under the additional assumption of maximal volume growth, we prove topological and geometric gap theorems. We also study 4-dimensional complete manifolds satisfying a lower bound with respect to ${\mathfrak{C}}_{\eta ,\mu }$ and obtain regularity results for Gromov-Hausdorff limits of complete volume non-collapsed manifolds satisfying such curvature lower bounds.

We study compact $m$-quasi-Einstein manifolds and derive geometric estimates relating the oscillation of the potential function to the diameter of the manifold. We obtain lower bounds for the diameter in terms of the oscillation of the potential function. As an application in dimension four, we derive diameter conditions ensuring that compact $m$-quasi-Einstein manifolds satisfy the Hitchin–Thorpe inequality. Our results extend diameter estimates in smooth metric measure spaces and are consistent with known bounds in the limiting case corresponding to Ricci solitons. Finally, we provide a volume estimate involving the oscillation.

In this paper, we establish a compactness theorem for gradient Ricci solitons with scalar curvature bounds and uniform lower bounds of harmonic coordinates. Our approach is to bootstrap regularity in harmonic coordinates by exploiting the soliton equation. As an application, we show that the regular part of any noncollapsed limit of gradient Ricci solitons with bounded Ricci curvature is smooth. Further, we show that a steady gradient Ricci soliton is asymptotically cylindrical under an ${\mathcal{L}}^1$-decay assumption on its Ricci curvature.

We establish a Petersen-Wei type relative volume comparison theorem for weighted Riemannian manifolds under both $L^p$-bounds of the Bakry-Émery Ricci curvature and the gradient of potential function. As an application, we give a modified proof for a volume comparison and monotonicity of Kähler-Ricci flow established in a recent work of Tian-Zhang-Zhang-Zhu-Zhu with improved estimate for error term.

We establish uniform diameter estimates and volume non-collapsing estimates for the Chern-Ricci flow on smooth Hermitian minimal models of general type, assuming the initial metric is Kähler in a neighborhood of the null locus of the canonical bundle. This yields subsequential Gromov-Hausdorff convergence, partially resolving a conjecture of Tosatti and Weinkove. When the underlying manifold is Kähler, we further prove the uniqueness of the limit space. Analytically, we overcome the difficulties posed by non-Kähler torsion in the Green's formula by exploiting our local Kähler assumption, successfully adapting recent estimates of Kähler Green's function to the Hermitian setting. To prove the uniqueness of the limit, we introduce Perelman's reduced length to the Chern-Ricci flow. By establishing a uniform Chern scalar curvature bound and an almost monotonicity formula for the reduced volume, we deduce an almost-avoidance principle for the singular set, allowing us to effectively compare the flow distance with the canonical limit distance.

We present a synthetic notion of scalar curvature (and its integral) for Riemannian manifolds and metric measure spaces, defined in terms of the initial slope of a Gaussian (double) integral. We explicitly calculate the integral scalar curvature for Lipschitz gluings of smooth Riemannian manifolds and for cones. In dimension 2, the former coincides with the formula derived by Gauss-Bonnet, whereas the latter differs. The extension to the time-dependent case allows us to characterize Ricci flows as super Ricci flows with minimal integral curvature functional.

We show that the normalized Kähler-Ricci flow on a compact Kähler manifold with semiample canonical bundle converges in the Gromov-Hausdorff topology to the metric completion of the twisted Kähler-Einstein metric on the canonical model, as conjectured by Song-Tian's analytic mimimal model program.

Let $S$ be an oriented closed surface with a cellular decomposition $\mathcal{D}$ and a weight $\Phi \in (0,\pi )$. It is crucial to determine when $S$ supports an ideal $\mathcal{D}$-type circle pattern $\mathcal{P}$ with the exterior intersection angles given by $\Phi$. Rivin, Bobenko-Springborn and Ge-Hua-Zhou provided perfect solutions and gave wonderful criteria for the existence and uniqueness of ideal circle patterns. However, all criteria established by Rivin, Bobenko-Springborn and Ge-Hua-Zhou are extremely difficult to verify for the given cellular decomposition $\mathcal{D}$ and the weight $\Phi$. In this paper, we introduce the character $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{D},\Phi )$ depends only on the data of the weighted cellular decomposition $(\mathcal{D},\Phi )$ on $S$, and give some quite simple criteria for the existence of ideal circle patterns realizing $(\mathcal{D},\Phi )$. It seems that our character-type criteria are the first conditions totally different from criteria of Rivin, Bobenko-Springborn and Ge-Hua-Zhou, and provide more easily verifiable criteria. Our new character-type theorems may be of some independent interest. As an application, we give a new descriptions of the curvature image set $\mathbf{K}({\mathbb{R}}_{>0}^N)$. To approach our results, we shall use the combinatorial Ricci flows with ideal circle patterns introduced by Ge-Hua-Zhou as a fundamental tool. The main difficulty in the proof of our results is to establish the compactness of the solution to the flows. To circumvent the difficulty, we borrow the techniques developed by Ge and his collaborators.

We prove a precompactness theorem for invariant metrics on compact homogeneous spaces without injectivity radius bounds, assuming uniform bounds on the diameter and on all derivatives of the curvature tensor. As a consequence, we prove that every ancient homogeneous Ricci flow on a compact manifold admits a blow-down sequence that converges to a gradient shrinking Ricci soliton.

We introduce and study a new general flow of ${\mathrm{G}}_2$-structures which we call the Ricci-harmonic flow of ${\mathrm{G}}_2$-structures. The flow is the coupling of the Ricci flow of underlying metrics and the isometric flow of ${\mathrm{G}}_2$-structures, but we also provide explicit lower order in the torsion terms. The lower order terms and the flow are obtained by analyzing the second order term in the Taylor series expansion of ${\mathrm{G}}_2$-structures in normal coordinates. As such, the Ricci-harmonic flow described in the paper can be interpreted as the "heat equation" for ${\mathrm{G}}_2$-structures. The lower order terms allow us to prove that the stationary points of the Ricci-harmonic flow are exactly torsion-free ${\mathrm{G}}_2$-structures on compact manifolds. We study various analytic and geometric properties of the flow. We show that the flow has short-time existence and uniqueness on compact manifolds starting with an arbitrary ${\mathrm{G}}_2$-structure and prove global Shi-type estimates. We also prove a modified local Shi-type estimates for the flow which assume bounds on the initial derivatives of the Riemann curvature tensor and the torsion but give uniform bounds on these quantities for all times. We prove a compactness theorem for the solutions of the flow and use it to prove that the Ricci-harmonic flow exists as long as the velocity of the flow remains bounded. We also study Ricci-harmonic solitons where we prove that there are no compact expanding solitons and the only steady solitons are torsion-free. We derive an analog of Hamilton's identity for gradient Ricci-harmonic solitons and prove some integral identities for the solitons. Finally, we prove a version of the Taylor series expansion for Spin(7)-structures and use it to derive the Ricci-harmonic flow of Spin(7)-structures.

We study model semilinear equations on complete and non-compact weighted Riemannian manifolds with non-negative Bakry-Émery Ricci curvature. Our main goal is to classify positive solutions of the equation at the Sobolev-critical exponent, and furthermore to prove that the existence of such solutions implies rigidity of the manifold and triviality of the weight. This is possible when the weighted manifold has non-negative finite dimensional Bakry-Émery Ricci curvature, and even under the weaker condition of non-negative infinite dimensional Bakry-Émery Ricci curvature, up to imposing some additional conditions in the latter case. To exhibit the sharpness of these additional conditions, we construct a non-trivial positive solution of the critical problem on a weighted manifold with positive infinite dimensional curvature. We also obtain a corresponding rigidity result for solutions of the Liouville equation on weighted Riemannian surfaces. Finally, we prove some non-existence theorems when the nonlinearity is sub-critical or simply under certain volume growth conditions. In particular, the latter rules out all positive solutions on shrinking gradient Ricci solitons.

We establish global existence of the pluriclosed flow with arbitrary initial data on Oeljeklaus-Toma manifolds, and Gromov-Hausdorff convergence of blowdown limits to a torus under natural conjectural bounds on the flow at infinity. In the case of generalized Kähler-Ricci flow we prove refined a priori estimates in support of these conjectural bounds.

Given a compact Kähler manifold $X$ and a closed, positive $(1,1)$-current $T$ on $X$, we find sufficient conditions for $T$ to induce a metric structure $(X,d_T)$ which is the Gromov-Hausdorff limit of compact Kähler manifolds either in a "static" way or at time zero of smooth Kähler-Ricci flows. In dimension $1$ we extend works of T. Richard and M. Simon, showing that any oriented compact Alexandrov surface with bounded integral curvature and without cusp is the initial datum of a Kähler-Ricci flow.

We review different notions of synthetic Ricci flow that apply to time-dependent families of metric measure spaces and which are based on properties of the heat flow, ideas from optimal transport, and the asymptotic behaviour of volumes. Each notion equivalently characterises (weighted) Ricci flow for smooth families of weighted Riemannian manifolds. We discuss the features of the different notions on various examples.

In this paper, we study the singular set $\mathcal{S}$ of a noncollapsed Ricci flow limit space, arising as the pointed Gromov–Hausdorff limit of a sequence of closed Ricci flows with uniformly bounded entropy. The singular set $\mathcal{S}$ admits a natural stratification: \beginequation* \mathcal S^0 \subset \mathcal S^1 \subset \cdots \subset \mathcal S^n-2=\mathcal S, \endequation* where a point $z\in {\mathcal{S}}^k$ if and only if no tangent flow at $z$ is $(k+1)$-symmetric. In general, the Hausdorff dimension of ${\mathcal{S}}^k$ with respect to the spacetime distance is at most $k$. We show that the subset ${\mathcal{S}}_{\mathrm{qc}}^k\subset {\mathcal{S}}^k$, consisting of points where some tangent flow is given by a standard cylinder or its quotient, is parabolic $k$-rectifiable. In dimension four, we prove the stronger statement that each stratum ${\mathcal{S}}^k$ is parabolic $k$-rectifiable for $k\in \{0,1,2\}$. Furthermore, we establish a sharp uniform ${\mathcal{H}}^2$-volume bound for $\mathcal{S}$ and show that, up to a set of ${\mathcal{H}}^2$-measure zero, the tangent flow at any point in $\mathcal{S}$ is backward unique. In addition, we derive $L^1$-curvature bounds for four-dimensional closed Ricci flows. As an application, we resolve Perelman's bounded diameter conjecture for three-dimensional closed Ricci flows.

We prove that a three dimensional compact Ricci flow that encounters a Type I singularity has uniformly bounded diameter up to the singular time, thus giving an affirmative answer - for Type I singularities - to a conjecture of Perelman. To achieve this, we introduce a concept of a neck-region for a Ricci flow, analogous to the neck-regions introduced by Jiang-Naber and Cheeger-Jiang-Naber, in the study of Ricci limit spaces. We then prove that the associated packing measure is, in a certain sense, Ahlfors regular, a result that holds in any dimension.

We establish a weak compactness theorem for the moduli space of closed Ricci flows, each equipped with a natural spacetime distance, under pointed Gromov–Hausdorff convergence. For the subspace of flows with uniformly bounded entropy, we further develop a structure theory for the corresponding noncollapsed Ricci flow limit spaces, showing that the regular part, where convergence is smooth, admits the structure of a Ricci flow spacetime, while the singular set has codimension at least four.

We prove that every nearly spherical, positively curved surface is the contractive, volume-preserving image of a round sphere. The proof combines three main tools: the Ricci flow on surfaces, the Kim-Milman construction, and a multiscale Bakry-Émery criterion.

We solve a general class of free boundary Monge-Ampère equations given by $$\det D^{2}u=\lambda \frac{f(-u)}{g(u^{\star })h(\nabla u)}{\chi }_{\{u<0\}}\text{ in }{\mathbb{R}}^n,\nabla u({\mathbb{R}}^n)=P$$ where $P$ is a bounded convex set containing the origin, and $h>0$ on $P$. We consider applications to optimal transport with degenerate densities, Monge-Ampère eigenvalue problems, and geometric problems including a hemispherical Minkowski problem and free boundary Kähler-Ricci solitons on toric Fano manifolds.

Optimal transport plays a major role in the study of manifolds with Ricci curvature bounded below. Some results in this setting have been extended to super Ricci flows, revealing a unified approach to analysis on Ricci nonnegative manifolds and Ricci flows. However we observe that the monotonicity of Perelman's functionals ($\mathcal{F}$, $\mathcal{W}$, reduced volume), which hold true for Ricci flows and Ricci nonnegative manifolds, cannot be strictly generalized to super Ricci flows. In 2010 Buzano introduced a condition which still generalizes Ricci flows and Ricci nonnegative manifolds, and on which Perelman's monotonicities do hold. We provide characterizations of this condition using optimal transport and understand it heuristically as Ricci nonnegativity of the space-time. This interpretation is consistent with its equivalence to Ricci nonnegativity on Perelman's infinite dimensional manifold. More precisely, we prove that for smooth evolutions of Riemannian manifolds, this condition is equivalent to a Bochner inequality (resembling Perelman's Harnack inequality but for the forward heat flow), a gradient estimate for the heat flow, a Wasserstein contraction along the adjoint heat flow, the convexity of a modified entropy along Wasserstein geodesics, and an Evolutionary Variational Inequality (EVI). The optimal transport statements use Perelman's $L$ distance as cost, as first studied on Ricci flows by Topping and by Lott. We also consider dimensionally improved and weighted versions of these conditions. The dimensional Bochner inequality and all gradient estimates for the forward heat equation, along with the EVIs, appear to be new even for general Ricci flows, and are related to the Hamiltonian perspective on the $L$ distance. Most of our proofs do not use tensor calculus or Jacobi fields, suggesting the possibility of future extensions to more singular settings.

In this paper, we extend Perelman's $W$-entropy formula and the concavity of the Shannon entropy power from smooth Ricci flow to super Ricci flows on metric measure spaces. Moreover, we prove the Li-Yau-Hamilton-Perelman Harnack inequality on super Ricci flows. As a significant application, we prove the equivalence between the volume non-local collapsing property and the lower boundedness of the $W$-entropy on RCD$(0,N)$ spaces. Finally, we use the $W$-entropy to study the logarithmic Sobolev inequality with optimal constant on super Ricci flows on metric measure spaces.

We study two different natural notions of singular Kähler-Einstein metrics on normal complex varieties. In the setting of singular Ricci flat Kähler cone metrics that arise as non-collapsed limits of sequences of Kähler-Einstein metrics or Kähler-Ricci flows, we show that an a priori weaker notion is equivalent to the stronger one introduced by Eyssidieux-Guedj-Zeriahi, and in particular the underlying variety has log terminal singularities in this case. Our method applies to more general singular Kähler-Einstein spaces as well, assuming that they define RCD spaces.

In this paper, we study the $t$-Gauduchon Ricci-flat condition under the Chern-Ricci flow. In this setting, we provide examples of Chern-Ricci flow on compact non-Kähler Calabi-Yau manifolds which do not preserve the $t$-Gauduchon Ricci-flat condition for $t<1$. The approach presented generalizes some previous constructions on Hopf manifolds. Also, we provide non-trivial new examples of balanced non-pluriclosed solution to the pluriclosed flow on non-Kähler manifolds. Further, we describe the limiting behavior, in the Gromov-Hausdorff sense, of geometric flows of Hermitian metrics (including the Chern-Ricci flow and the pluriclosed flow) on certain principal torus bundles over flag manifolds. In this last setting, we describe explicitly the Gromov-Hausdorff limit of the pluriclosed flow on principal $T^2$-bundles over the Fano threefold $\mathbb{P}(T_{{\mathbb{P}}^2})$.

We study Perelman's W-entropy functional on finite-dimensional RCD spaces, a synthetic generalization of spaces with Bakry-Émery Ricci curvature bounded from below. We rigorously justify the formula for the time derivative of the W-entropy and derive its monotonicity and rigidity properties. Additionally, we establish bounds for solutions of the heat equation, which are of independent interest.

We show that a general class of singular Kähler metrics with Ricci curvature bounded below define Kähler currents. In particular the result applies to singular Kähler-Einstein metrics on klt pairs, and an analogous result holds for Kähler-Ricci solitons. In addition we show that if a singular Kähler-Einstein metric can be approximated by smooth metrics on a resolution whose Ricci curvature has negative part that is bounded uniformly in $L^p$ for $p>\frac{2n-1}{n}$, then the metric defines an RCD space.

We develop different synthetic notions of Ricci flow in the setting of time-dependent metric measure spaces based on ideas from optimal transport. They are formulated in terms of dynamic convexity and local concavity of the entropy along Wasserstein geodesics on the one hand and in terms of global and short-time asymptotic transport cost estimates for the heat flow on the other hand. We show that these properties characterise smooth (weighted) Ricci flows. Further, we investigate the relation between the different notions in the non-smooth setting of time-dependent metric measure spaces.

This manuscript investigates the curvature and topological properties of certain $\infty$-Einstein Finsler metrics on Finsler metric measure spaces. By imposing symmetry conditions, we construct a series of special metrics and analyze their equivalence on special manifolds. Provided a Ricci curvature bound, we establish a linear growth lower bound estimate for the S-curvature and the distortion, revealing the interplay between curvature and measure on $\infty$-Einstein Finsler manifolds. Furthermore, by introducing scalar curvature and imposing a linear growth lower bound condition, we derive upper and lower bounds for the distortion, S-curvature, and the scalar curvature itself on asymmetric essential gradient Ricci solitons with certain non-Riemannian curvature constraints. These results yield direct topological finiteness conclusions for some forward-complete $\infty$-Einstein Finsler manifolds. Our work partially addresses Gromov's conjecture of scalar curvature in the context of Finsler metric measure spaces and provides a foundation for further research in geometric analysis within general Finsler geometry.

We provide new type of decay estimate for scalar curvatures of steady gradient Ricci solitons. We also give certain upper bound for the diameter of a Riemannian manifold whose $\infty$-Bakry–Emery Ricci tensor is bounded by some positive constant from below. For the proofs, we use $\mu$-bubbles introduced by Gromov.

In recent work of Chan-Huang-Lee, it is shown that if a manifold enjoys uniform bounds on (a) the negative part of the scalar curvature, (b) the local entropy, and (c) volume ratios up to a fixed scale, then there exists a Ricci flow for some definite time with estimates on the solution assuming that the local curvature concentration is small enough initially (depending only on these a priori bounds). In this work, we show that the bound on scalar curvature assumption (a) is redundant. We also give some applications of this quantitative short-time existence, including a Ricci flow smoothing result for measure space limits, a Gromov-Hausdorff compactness result, and a topological and geometric rigidity result in the case that the a priori local bounds are strengthened to be global.

By adapting previously known arguments concerning Ricci flow and the c-theorem, we give a direct proof that in a two-dimensional sigma-model with compact target space, scale invariance implies conformal invariance in perturbation theory. This argument, which applies to a general sigma-model constructed with a target space metric and B-field, is in accord with a more general proof in the literature that applies to arbitrary two-dimensional quantum field theories. Models with extended supersymmetry and a B-field are known to provide interesting test cases for the relation between scale invariance and conformal invariance in sigma-model perturbation theory. We give examples showing that in such models, the obstructions to conformal invariance suggested by general arguments can actually occur in models with target spaces that are not compact or complete. Thus compactness of the target space, or at least a suitable condition of completeness, is necessary as well as sufficient to ensure that scale invariance implies conformal invariance in models of this type.

In this paper, we prove some Willmore-type inequalities for closed hypersurfaces in weighted manifolds with nonnegative Bakry-Émery Ricci curvature. In particular, we give a sharp Willmore type inequality in steady gradient Ricci solitons. We also prove a sharp Willmore-like inequality in shrinking gradient Ricci solitons. Moreover, we characterize the equality cases of Willmore-type inequalities. These results can be regarded as weighted versions of Agostiniani-Fogagnolo-Mazzieri's Willmore-type inequality. As applications, we derive some sharp isoperimetric type inequalities in weighted manifolds under the existence assumption of a critical set of weighted isoperimetric functional.

Metric measure spaces with synthetic Ricci bounds have attracted great interest in recent years, accompanied by spectacular breakthroughs and deep new insights. In this survey, I will provide a brief introduction to the concept of lower Ricci bounds as introduced by Lott-Villani and myself, and illustrate some of its geometric, analytic and probabilistic consequences, among them Li-Yau estimates, coupling properties for Brownian motions, sharp functional and isoperimetric inequalities, rigidity results, and structural properties like rectifiability and rectifiability of the boundary. In particular, I will explain its crucial interplay with the heat flow and its link to the curvaturedimension condition formulated in functional-analytic terms by Bakry-Èmery. This equivalence between the Lagrangian and the Eulerian approach then will be further explored in various recent research directions: i) time-dependent Ricci bounds which provide a link to (super-) Ricci flows for singular spaces, ii) second order calculus, upper Ricci bounds, and transformation formulas, iii) distribution-valued Ricci bounds which e.g. allow singular effects of non-convex boundaries to be taken into account.

We study the existence and small scale behaviour of almost splitting maps along a Ricci flow satisfying Type I curvature bounds. These are special solutions of the heat equation that serve as parabolic analogues of harmonic almost splitting maps, which have proven to be an indespensable tool in the study of the structure of the singular set of non-collapsed Ricci limit spaces. In this paper, motivated by the recent work of Cheeger-Jiang-Naber in the Ricci limit setting, we construct sharp splitting maps on Ricci flows that are almost selfsimilar, and then investigate their small scale behaviour. We show that, modulo linear transformations, an almost splitting map at a large scale remains a splitting map even at smaller scales, provided that the Ricci flow remains sufficiently self-similar. Allowing these linear transformations means that a priori an almost splitting map might degenerate at small scales. However, we show that under an additional summability hypothesis such degeneration doesn't occur.

In this paper, we study the Bakry-Émery Ricci flow on finite graphs. Our main result is the local existence and uniqueness of solutions to the Ricci flow. We prove the long-time convergence or finite-time blow up for the Bakry-Émery Ricci flow on finite trees and circles.

In this paper, we explore the positive solutions to the Finslerian nonlinear equation $$\frac{\partial u}{\partial t}={\Delta }^{\nabla u}u+au\log u+bu,$$ which is related to Ricci solitons and serves as the Euler-Lagrange equation to the Finslerian log-energy functional. We then obtain the global gradient estimate of its positive solution on a compact Finsler metric measure space with the weighted Ricci curvature bounded below. Furthermore, using a new comparison theorem developed by the first author, we also establish a local gradient estimate on a non-compact forward complete Finsler metric measure spaces with the mixed weighted Ricci curvature bounded below, as well as finite bounds of misalignment and some non-Riemannian curvatures. Lastly, we prove the Harnack inequalities and a Liouville-type theorem of such solutions.

Collapsed ancient solutions to the homogeneous Ricci flow on compact manifolds occur only on the total space of principal torus bundles. Under an algebraic assumption that guarantees flowing through diagonal metrics and a tameness assumption on the collapsing directions, we prove that such solutions have additional symmetries, i.e., they are invariant under the right action of their collapsing torus. As a byproduct of these additional torus symmetries, we prove that these solutions converge, backward in time, in the Gromov-Hausdorff topology to an Einstein metric on the base of a torus bundle.

In this paper, we prove that given a hyperbolic polyhedral metric with an inversive distance circle packing, and a target discrete curvature satisfying Gauss-Bonnet formula, there exist a unique inversive distance circle packing which is discrete conformal to the former one. We deform the surface by discrete Ricci flow, and do surgery by edge flipping when the orthogonal circles of some faces are about to be non-compact. The revised weighted Delaunay inequality of hyperbolic case implies the compactness of the orthogonal circle. We use a variational principle of a convex Ricci potential defined on the fiber bundles with cell-decomposition and differential structure based on Teichmüller space to finish the proof.

We establish a nonlinear analogue of a splitting map into a Euclidean space, as a harmonic map into a flat torus. We prove that the existence of such a map implies Gromov-Hausdorff closeness to a flat torus in any dimension. Furthermore, Gromov-Hausdorff closeness to a flat torus and an integral bound {on $r_M(x)$, the smallest eigenvalue of the Ricci tensor ${\text{ric}}_x$ in $x$}, imply the existence of a harmonic splitting map. Combining these results with Stern's inequality, we provide a new Gromov-Hausdorff stability theorem for flat $3$-tori. The main tools we employ include the harmonic map heat flow, Ricci flow, and both Ricci limits and RCD theories.

This paper is devoted to the investigation of the monotonicity of parabolic frequency functional under conformal Ricci flow defined on a closed Riemannian manifold of constant scalar curvature and dimension not less than 3. Parabolic frequency functional for solutions of certain linear heat equation coupled with conformal pressure is defined and its monotonicity under the conformal Ricci flow is proved by applying Bakry-Emery Ricci curvature bounds. Some consequences of the monotonicity are also presented.

We establish geometric regularity for Type I blow-up limits of the Kähler-Ricci flow based at any sequence of Ricci vertices. As a consequence, the limiting flow is continuous in time in both Gromov-Hausdorff and Gromov-$W_1$ distance. In particular, the singular sets of each time slice and its tangent cones are close and of codimension no less than $4$.