Scalar curvature

We prove a Positive Mass Theorem for $C^0$-asymptotically flat Riemannian metrics with nonnegative scalar curvature in a weak sense that are sufficiently uniformly close to Euclidean space. More precisely, we show that a $C^0$-asymptotically flat Riemannian metric that is a $C^0$ perturbation of Euclidean space with nonnegative scalar curvature in the sense of Ricci flow has nonnegative mass, where the mass is given by a $C^0$ analog of the classical ADM mass previously introduced by the author.

The analytic minimal model program proposed in seeks to describe the birational transitions and fibre collapsing of the Kähler–Ricci flow through the geometry of its singularities. A fundamental conjecture of predicts Type I bounds for the scalar curvature and diameter of every fibre contratced by the limiting cohomological class at the finite singular time. This paper is a continuation of that establishes the Type I conjecture for collapsing solutions on Fano bundles with arbitrary smooth Fano fibres. If the fibre admits a smooth Kähler-Einstein metric, the Type I bound holds for the full curvature tensor.

We study a natural way to deform area-preserving maps between compact Riemann surfaces. Specifically, we evolve the metrics on the two Riemann surfaces by the normalized Ricci flow and the graph of the area-preserving map by the mean curvature flow. We prove that the flow exists for all time, remains the graph of an area-preserving map, and converges smoothly and exponentially to a minimal Lagrangian graph with respect to the product of the limiting metrics. This generalizes earlier results of Wang and Smoczyk, in which the Riemann surfaces have constant scalar curvature.

In this paper, we introduce some type vector fields with respect to a semi-symmetric non-metric (SSNM) connection. We investigate several geometric properties of a K-contact manifold equipped with an SSNM connection and provide a concrete example to justify the relation between the scalar curvature of the SSNM connection and Levi-Civita connection that we have obtained in this paper. Furthermore, we have found the nature of Riemann solitons, conformal Ricci solitons and conformal $\eta$-Ricci-Yamabe solitons on K-contact manifolds admitting a SSNM connection.\\ Finally, we determine the necessary and sufficient conditions for such a manifold to be $\text{Tilde}\tau$-semi-symmetric, quasi-conformal-semi-symmetric and pseudo-projective-semi-symmetric.

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 relate the generalized Ricci curvature of left-invariant generalized metrics on a Lie group with the Ricci curvature of certain metric Lie algebras. As an application, we prove subconvergence of rescaled generalized Ricci flows to expanding generalized Ricci solitons on simply connected Lie groups with positive semi-definite Killing form. Under the same hypotheses, subconvergence of pluriclosed flows to expanding pluriclosed solitons is also shown. We further prove that left-invariant Bismut-Ricci flat metrics arise as critical points for the generalized scalar curvature functional on unimodular Lie groups. In view of this, we establish dynamical stability for the generalized Ricci flow of so-called standard bi-invariant, Bismut-flat metrics on compact, simply connected, semisimple Lie groups and construct examples of dynamically unstable Bismut-flat metrics which are non-standard.

Let $(M^n,g,f)$ be a complete shrinking gradient Ricci soliton with constant scalar curvature. Under the assumptions that (i) $Ric\ge \frac{{\nabla }_{\nabla f}Ric}{f}$ on $M\setminus D$, where $D$ is a compact set over $M$; (ii) $(M^n,g,f)$ smoothly converges to ${\mathbb{R}}^2\times {\mathbb{S}}^{n-2}$, we conclude that $(M^n,g,f)$ is isometric to ${\mathbb{R}}^2\times {\mathbb{S}}^{n-2}$. Notably, condition (i) is weaker than the radial flatness condition in.

In this paper, we prove a gap theorem for $\mathbb{F}$-limit metric solitons with respect to the asymptotic volume ratio (AVR): if the AVR of a metric soliton is sufficiently close to 1, then the metric soliton is Euclidean; this is a metric-soliton counterpart of Wang-Wang. Our result can be applied to Ricci flows to derive a gap theorem and an $\epsilon$-regularity theorem: (1) an ancient Ricci flow with a type-I scalar curvature bound and AVR close enough to 1 must be the static Euclidean space, (2) a Ricci flow with locally type-I scalar curvature bound and local volume ratio close enough to 1 must be regular enough locally (in the sense that its curvature radius cannot be too small).

We study the metric geometry of finite-time singularities of volume-noncollapsed Kähler-Ricci flows and the geometry at infinity of Ricci shrinkers. For a compact volume-noncollapsed Kähler-Ricci flow approaching its first singular time, we prove that the time slices converge to a unique Gromov-Hausdorff limit, canonically identified with the time-zero slice of the Ricci-flow spacetime completion. Its regular part is identified with the complement of the null locus, and we show that the singular set has Hausdorff codimension at least four. For Kähler-Ricci shrinkers, we relate the geometry at infinity to the associated Fano fibration. We prove local smooth convergence to a Kähler cone metric on the locus where the fibration is biholomorphic, and characterize asymptotic conicality by biholomorphicity outside a compact set. For Ricci shrinkers with bounded scalar curvature, we show that local compactness of the time-zero slice implies pointed Gromov-Hausdorff convergence of the full self-similar flow to that slice. As applications, we prove uniqueness of the tangent space at infinity for Kähler-Ricci shrinkers with bounded scalar curvature and Euclidean volume growth whose soliton vector field generates an $S^1$-action, and for all four-dimensional Ricci shrinkers with bounded scalar curvature.

We study non-compact Ricci solitons of finite volume whose potential vector field has constant length. Under the assumptions that the scalar curvature is constant along the integral curves of the potential field and that a natural divergence term is integrable on the unit tangent bundle, we prove that such Ricci solitons are necessarily trivial. As applications, we obtain rigidity and non-existence results for Ricci solitons whose potential field is the Reeb vector field of almost contact metric and almost $\alpha$-cosymplectic manifolds. In dimension three, we derive consequences for almost $\alpha$-cosymplectic and contact metric manifolds, and we compare our results with the classification of homogeneous almost $\alpha$-cosymplectic Ricci solitons due to Li and Liu. Several examples and non-examples are included to illustrate the necessity of the finite-volume and sign assumptions.

Let $V$ be an $n$-dimensional Euclidean vector space, ,where $n\ge 4$, and $\ell =\lfloor \frac{n}{2}\rfloor$. We prove the sharp pointwise estimate $$q_2(E)\ge -\frac{2(\ell -1)}{3\ell }\mathrm{Scal}(E){\mathrm{Id}}_{{\Lambda }^2{V}^{\ast }}$$ for every algebraic curvature tensor $E$ on $V$ with nonnegative sectional curvature. Applying this estimate to the decomposition ${\mathrm{Rm}}_g=K_{\min }I+E$, we obtain the vanishing of $H^2(M;\mathbb{R})$ under a dimension-dependent strict sectional-scalar curvature pinching condition. At the weak endpoint, all harmonic two-forms are parallel. Apart from the flat case, this yields $b_2(M)=0$ in odd dimensions and $b_2(M)\le 1$ in even dimensions. At even-dimensional endpoint, $b_2(M)>0$ forces $(M,g)$ to be isometric, up to scaling, to ${\mathbb{CP}}^{\ell }$ with its Fubini-Study metric. As a consequence every closed five-dimensional manifold satisfying the strict pinching condition implies is a rational homology sphere. An anisotropic rescaling of the same homogeneous four-frame estimate also gives the sharp pointwise sectional-scalar pinching criterion $$K_{\min }\ge \frac{n(n-1)}{n^2-n+12}{S}_0⟹PIC2.$$ The strict pinching places the curvature tensor in the interior of PIC2 and normalized Ricci flow brings it to a positive constant sectional curvature.

We study the stability problem for Einstein manifolds with boundary with respect to the Einstein-Hilbert action. The geometric boundary conditions we are using arise naturally from studying the calculus of variations associated with Ricci flow. Upon the introduction of a boundary, the space of TTg tensors no longer arise naturally as the defining space for the stability condition. Thus we must settle for the larger subspace of tensors preserving the scalar curvature, the total volume and the Bianchi gauge condition, which we call the space of TVg tensors. As a test-case, we shall discuss stability of the Riemannian Schwarzschild anti-deSitter family of metrics; a problem known as "a Black hole in a box".

In this work, we study the positive mass theorem under critical low regularity assumptions using Ricci flow smoothing. We show that asymptotically flat manifolds $(M^n,g)$ of regularity $L^{\infty }\cap W^{1,n}$ with non-negative distributional scalar curvature have non-negative ADM mass. Furthermore, when the ADM mass vanishes, the manifold is globally isometric to Euclidean space with respect to an integral distance introduced by De Cecco-Palmieri. This extends the recent work of Hafemann to the critical regularity case. Our approach is based on showing that Riemannian metrics of regularity $L^{\infty }\cap W^{1,n}$, whose scalar curvature is bounded from below in the distributional sense, admit a Ricci flow smoothing whose scalar curvature is bounded from below by the same initial lower bound in the classical sense. In contrast, Cecchini-Frenck-Zeidler constructed examples of metrics which are in $L^{\infty }\cap W^{1,p}$ for all $2<p<n$, and whose distributional scalar curvature is bounded from below, that cannot be approximated by smooth metrics with the same scalar curvature lower bound. In this sense, our result is optimal.

The Bures–Helstrom metric is the minimal monotone Riemannian metric on the state space of a qubit. With the quantum Fisher normalization used here, it identifies the Bloch ball with a geodesic hemisphere of the unit round three–sphere. We describe its Ricci flow explicitly. In a general rotationally symmetric gauge the flow is a coupled system for the radial lapse and warping factor; a single scalar equation appears only after a Hamilton–DeTurck gauge choice. In the corresponding moving DeTurck frame the squared warping function $\Psi ={\Phi }^2$ satisfies the linear forced heat equation \beginequation* D_tΨ=Ψ_ss-2, \endequation* while the fixed-lapse coordinate form contains the associated transport term. Since the Bures–Helstrom metric is Einstein, the geometric flow itself is the homothetic shrinker \beginequation* g(t)=(1-4t)g_BH, \endequation* with scalar curvature $6/(1-4t)$ and extinction time $T=1/4$. Thus the metric remains inside the monotone cone for all $t<T$ and leaves the cone of nondegenerate Riemannian metrics only through the collapsed limit. We also record the volume–normalized flow, for which the Bures–Helstrom metric is a fixed point. Its linearization is the shifted round–sphere Laplacian ${\Delta }_{{\mathbb{S}}^3}+3$, with spectrum \beginequation* σ_\ell=-(\ell-1)(\ell+3), \endequation* and spectral gap $5$ after removal of the scaling mode.

This paper is concerned with a class of the long time Kähler-Ricci flow on a compact Kähler manifold. It is shown that the uniform $\mu$-entropy or uniform Sobolev inequality along the normalized Kähler-Ricci flow with semiample canonical bundle. As a consequence, we prove that the scalar curvature of the Kähler metrics along the normalized Kähler-Ricci flow converge to negative Kodaira dimension of the compact Kähler manifold.

This article explores to what extent the geometry of gradient Ricci solitons extends to non-gradient Ricci solitons. The primary tool is the energy function $E$ of the soliton. We study consequences of various bounds on $E$. Under mild assumptions on the scalar curvature, we prove a weighted $L^1$-Liouville type theorem for both the usual Laplacian and the drifted Laplacian ${\Delta }_V$ associated to soliton vector field $V$, the former of which implies that Ricci solitons with bounded energy function have at most one nonparabolic end. Finally, we show that the measure $e^{-E}\mathrm{d}{\mathrm{Vol}}_g$ is finite for complete shrinking Ricci solitons, partially generalizing a result of Aaron Naber. As a consequence, non-gradient shrinking Ricci solitons also have finite fundamental groups, as in the gradient case.

Rigidity, stability and local minimizing properties of Einstein metrics as critical points of quadratic Riemannian functionals defined by $L^2$-norms of Ricci curvature, scalar curvature, Weyl curvature and Riemannian curvature have been extensively studied. However, there are non-Einstein critical points of these functionals that are not so well understood. In this paper, we study Ricci solitons, a generalization of Einstein metrics, that are critical points of a special quadratic curvature functional and analyze their rigidity.

We continue our local singularity analysis for Ricci flow initiated in ArXiv:2006.16227. Building on that framework, we study Type I singular points in general Ricci flows, without assuming any global Type I curvature bound, and prove that the scalar curvature must blow up at a Type I rate at each such point in all dimensions. As a consequence, Ricci flows with bounded scalar curvature cannot develop Type I singular points. This extends earlier results of the first author with Enders and Topping and with Mantegazza that relied on a global Type I assumption. We then adapt the same local perspective to ancient Ricci flows and analyse the curvature behaviour as time goes to negative infinity, showing in particular that every ancient Type I point exhibits scalar curvature behaviour of ancient Type I order.

The analysis of singularities in scalar curvature is a classical problem. In this survey, we investigate the behavior of scalar curvature under several geometric flows, with a focus on three specific cases: the Ricci flow, the Kähler-Ricci flow coupled with $(1,1)$-forms, and the Laplacian flow.

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.

Motivated by the works of Gromov and LeBrun in Riemannian geometry, we study the analogous phenomena in complex geometry. We first show that both ${\int }_M|S_C^{-}(g){|}^{n}d{V}_g$ and ${\mathrm{vol}}_g(M)$ (normalized by $S_C(g)\ge -1$) are bounded below by $\frac{(n\pi {)}^n}{n!}\mathrm{CanVol}(M)$ for any Hermitian metric $g$ on a compact complex $n-$manifold $M$. Here $S_C$ denotes the Chern scalar curvature, $S_C^{-}=\max \{-S_C,0\}$ and $\mathrm{CanVol}(M)$ is the canonical volume of $M$, i.e., the volume of the canonical line bundle $K_M$. Moreover, if ${\mathrm{vol}}_g(M)=\frac{(n\pi {)}^n}{n!}\mathrm{CanVol}(M)$ holds for some Kähler metric with $S_C\ge -1$, then it has to be the Kähler-Einstein metric of negative scalar curvature. The completely new phenomenon is that if $M$ is a compact Kähler manifold such that $K_M$ is nef, then ${\mathrm{MinVol}}_C(M)={\mathcal{I}}_C(M)={\mathcal{I}}_C^{-}(M)=\frac{(n\pi {)}^n}{n!}\mathrm{CanVol}(M)$, where ${\mathrm{MinVol}}_C(M)$ is the infimum of ${\mathrm{vol}}_g(M)$ with $S_C(g)\ge -1$ and ${\mathcal{I}}_C^{-}(M)={\inf }_g{\int }_M|S_C^{-}(g){|}^{n}d{V}_g$, ${\mathcal{I}}_C(M)={\inf }_g{\int }_M|S_C(g){|}^{n}d{V}_g$. It remains unknown whether the nef condition is superfluous. The answer is positive when $M$ is obtained by blowing up a finite number of points from a projective manifold with big and nef canonical line bundle. The arguments are based on the asymptotic behaviour of the Bergman kernel of $m{K}_M$ as $m\to \infty$, the theory of Kähler-Ricci flow and singular Kähler-Einstein metric, as well as a very delicate gluing technique, using the Burns-Simanca metric.

The Fefferman–Szegő metric $g_{\mathrm{FS}}^{\Omega }$ on a $C^{\infty }$-smooth bounded strongly pseudoconvex domain $\Omega \subset {\mathbb{C}}^n$ is an invariant metric defined via the Fefferman surface measure. For this metric, we first establish the vanishing of its $L^2$-Dolbeault cohomology outside the middle degree: $\dim H_2^{p,q}(\Omega )=0$ if $p+q\ne n$, while $\dim H_2^{p,q}(\Omega )=\infty$ if $p+q=n$. We also prove that the metric has $C^{\infty }$-bounded geometry. Using this analytic property, we obtain several rigidity results. In particular, if the Fefferman–Szegő metric is a gradient Kahler–Ricci soliton, then $\Omega$ is biholomorphic to the unit ball ${\mathbb{B}}^n$. Moreover, if the metric has constant scalar curvature, then it is Einstein, and again $\Omega$ is biholomorphic to ${\mathbb{B}}^n$. We also give a Ramadanov-type criterion in terms of the Fefferman–Szegő invariant function. Finally, in dimension $n=2$, assuming the existence of a Kahler immersion into a finite-dimensional ball that maps boundary to boundary transversally, we show that the logarithmic term of the Fefferman–Szegő kernel vanishes to infinite order. Consequently, the boundary is locally spherical; if, in addition, $\Omega$ is simply connected, then $\Omega$ is biholomorphic to ${\mathbb{B}}^2$.

Let $(M^4,g,f)$ be a four-dimensional complete noncompact gradient shrinking Ricci soliton with the equation $Ric+{\nabla }^{2}f=\frac{1}{2}g$. If its scalar curvature is $1$, Cheng-Zhou proved that it is a finite quotient of ${\mathbb{R}}^2\times {\mathbb{S}}^2$. In this note we present an alternative proof by analyzing the asymptotic geometry at infinity.

Let $(M^n,g,f)$ be an $n$-dimensional complete noncompact gradient shrinking Ricci soliton with the equation $Ric+{\nabla }^{2}f=\frac{1}{2}g$. 1. If its scalar curvature is $\frac{k}{2}$, Ricci curvature is nonnegative and sectional curvature has upper bound $\frac{1}{2(k-1)}$, we prove that the Ricci shrinker is isometric to a finite quotient of ${\mathbb{R}}^{n-k}\times {\mathbb{S}}^k$. 2. If $M$ has constant scalar curvature $R=\frac{n-2}{2}$, and each level set of $f$ has vanishing Weyl curvature, we prove that it is a finite quotient of ${\mathbb{R}}^2\times {\mathbb{S}}^{n-2}$. This can be seen a generalization of Cheng-Zhou's four dimensional result to high dimension, since the level set of the potential function $f$ has vanishing Weyl curvature automatically when $n=4$.

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 present two characterizations of smooth compact Ricci flow solutions solely in terms of metrics and measures (one of them only works under positive scalar curvature along the flow); thus, provide weak formulations that are generalized to the singular setting in a straightforward manner. These formulations are achieved by weakly formulating super Ricci flows and imposing a saturation condition (solely in terms of metric and measure) to ensure the super Ricci flow inequality is an equality.

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 study higher-order curvature estimates along Kähler-Ricci flows on compact Kähler manifolds of intermediate Kodaira dimension. We prove that away from singular fibers, the Ricci curvature is uniformly bounded in $C^1$, the Laplacian of the Ricci curvature in $C^0$, and the scalar curvature in $C^2$. We identify a geometric obstruction to higher-order curvature bounds, whose non-vanishing causes a specific third-order derivative of the Ricci curvature to blow up at rate $e^{t/2}$. Uniform $C^k$ bounds for every $k$ hold for the Ricci curvature in the isotrivial case, and for the full Riemann curvature in the torus-fibered case.

In this paper we study the behavior of the scalar curvature at infinity on complete noncompact steady gradient Ricci solitons. In dimension four, we assume that the canonical Ricci flow induced by the soliton is a weak $\kappa$-solution and that the soliton is not isometric to the Bryant soliton. In this setting, we identify the two edges of the soliton and prove that the scalar curvature decays at a linear rate away from these edges. Moreover, if the scalar curvature vanishes at infinity, then a stronger inequality holds and the asymptotic cone is a ray. In particular, our results apply to the four-dimensional steady solitons constructed by Lai.

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.

This is the second of two papers studying both the geometric structure of Fano fibrations and the application to Kähler-Ricci flows developing a singularity in finite time. We assume that the Kähler-Ricci flow on a compact Kähler manifold has a rational initial metric and develops a singularity in finite time such that the manifold admits a Fano fibration structure. Moreover, it is assumed that the volume form of the flow collapses uniformly at the rate of $C^{-1}(T-t{)}^{n-m}\Omega \le \omega (t{)}^n\le C(T-t{)}^{n-m}\Omega$. Under this setting, a diameter bound is obtained in any compact set away from singular fibres and the diameter of the fibres is proven to collapse at the optimal rate $\sqrt{T-t}$. Furthermore, several precise $C^0$-estimates are proven for the potential of the complex Monge-Ampere flow which involve the potentials of singular twisted Kähler-Einstein metrics on the base variety from part I. Finally, in the case of Kähler-Einstein Fano fibres, we deduce Type I scalar curvature in any compact set away from singular fibres and globally for a submersion.

We consider noncompact complete Kähler manifolds with nonnegative bisectional curvature. Our main results are: 1. Precise relations among refined minimal degree of polynomial growth holomorphic functions and holomorphic volume forms, $\mathrm{AVR}$ (asymptotic volume ratio) and $\mathrm{ASCD}$ (average of scalar curvature decay) are established. 2. The Lyapunov asymptotic behavior of the Kähler-Ricci flow can be described in terms of polynomial growth holomorphic functions. This provides a unifying perspective that bridges the two distinct proofs of Yau's uniformization conjecture by Liu and Chau-Lee-Tam. These resolve two conjectures made by Yang.

We review recent results relating linear stability to dynamical stability and the scalar curvature rigidity of Einstein manifolds. We discuss closed and open Einstein manifolds as well as complete noncompact Einstein manifolds which are asymptotically locally Euclidean and asymptotically hyperbolic. For these classes, the relation to the positive mass theorem will also be explained.

In this paper, we investigate curvature pinching phenomena in complete non-compact asymptotically conical gradient expanding Ricci solitons and establish several Hamilton-Ivey type curvature pinching estimates. These results are parallel to those known for shrinking and steady Ricci solitons. In particular, we prove a three-dimensional Hamilton-Ivey type curvature pinching theorem: any three-dimensional non-compact gradient Ricci expander, which is asymptotic to a cone with positive scalar curvature, must have positive sectional curvature. Furthermore, we formulate a general method and apply it to obtain analogues of several additional known generalized Hamilton-Ivey type curvature pinching results for ancient solutions. Among these is a curvature pinching estimate for four-dimensional asymptotically conical Ricci expanders with uniformly positive isotropic curvature, analogous to a result for four-dimensional gradient steady solitons due to Brendle [8].

We study the modified Ricci solitons as a new class of Einstein type metrics that contains both Ricci solitons and $n$-quasi-Einstein metrics. This class is closely related to the construction of the Ricci solitons that are realised as warped products. A modified Ricci soliton appears as part of a special solution of the modified Ricci-harmonic flow, which result a new characterization of $n$-quasi-Einstein metrics. We also study the modified Ricci almost solitons. In the spirit of the Lichnerowicz and Obata first eigenvalue theorems, we prove that in the class of compact Riemannian manifolds with constant scalar curvature the standard sphere with a structure of gradient modified Ricci almost soliton is rigid under some specific geometric conditions. Moreover, we display an example of modified Ricci-harmonic soliton.

We investigate four-dimensional gradient shrinking Ricci solitons with positive modified sectional curvature. Our first main result shows that if the norm of the self-dual Weyl tensor and the scalar curvature satisfy a certain sharp pinching condition (closely related, in a precise sense, to that of Kähler metric), then the soliton is necessarily locally Kähler. We further obtain a characterization theorem and a weighted integral gap result for compact gradient shrinking Ricci solitons with bounded modified sectional curvature. In addition, we establish a Hitchin-Thorpe type inequality for compact four-dimensional Ricci solitons, providing new topological constraints on such manifolds.

In this note, we give a diffeomorphism (to ${\mathbb{R}}^n$) criterion via long-time Ricci flow and show some applications. In particular, we provide an affirmative answer that the conclusion in [Manifolds with small curvature concentration, Ann. PDE, 2024] by Chan, Lee and the first named author and [Removing scalar curvature assumption for Ricci flow smoothing, Bull. Lond. Math. Soc., 2025] by A. Martens about manifolds with small curvature concentration can be improved to diffeomorphism in dimension $4$.

This paper studies minimal surface entropy (the exponential asymptotic growth of the number of minimal surfaces up to a given value of area) for negatively curved metrics on hyperbolic $3$-manifolds of finite volume, particularly its comparison to the hyperbolic minimal surface entropy in terms of sectional and scalar curvature. On one hand, for metrics that are bilipschitz equivalent to the hyperbolic metric and have sectional curvature bounded above by $-1$ and uniformly bounded below, we show that the entropy achieves its minimum if and only if the metric is hyperbolic. On the other hand, by analyzing the convergence rate of the Ricci flow toward the hyperbolic metric, we prove that among all metrics with scalar curvature bounded below by $-6$ and with non-positive sectional curvature on the cusps, the entropy is maximized at the hyperbolic metric, provided that it is infinitesimally rigid. Furthermore, if the metrics are uniformly $C^0$-close to the hyperbolic metric and asymptotically cusped, then the entropy associated with the Lebesgue measure is uniquely maximized at the hyperbolic metric.

We show that for a broad family of noncompact homogeneous Riemannian manifolds, the corresponding homogeneous Ricci flow solutions have finite extinction time, thereby confirming the dynamical Alekseevskii conjecture for these spaces. As an application, we prove that on such homogeneous manifolds $G/H$, the space of all $G$-invariant positive scalar curvature metrics is contractible.

Let (X, g, J, f ) be a non-compact gradient shrinking Kahler-Ricci soliton. We prove that if the scalar curvature of X satisfies a mild assumption, then OP (X), the ring of holomorphic functions with polynomial growth on X, is finitely generated. This gives a partial confirmation to a conjecture of Munteanu and Wang (cf.[MW14]).

In this paper, we begin by introducing Clairaut Riemannian warped product maps and establish the condition under which a regular curve becomes a geodesic. We obtain the conditions for a Riemannian warped product map to be Clairaut Riemannian warped product map followed by Ricci curvature. Further, we study the Ricci soliton structure on a Riemannian warped product manifold using curvature tensor. We examine the Bochner type formulae for Clairaut Riemannian warped product map and construct a supporting example. Furthermore, we extend the study to introduce and examine some geometric aspects of conformal Riemannian warped product maps. We derive the integral formula for scalar curvature of conformal Riemannian warped product map. Finally, we construct an example for conformal Riemannian warped product map.

We study the uniqueness problem for the Kähler-Ricci flow with a conical initial condition. Given a complete gradient expanding Kähler-Ricci soliton on a non compact manifold with quadratic curvature decay, including its derivatives, we establish that any complete solution to the Kahler-Ricci flow emerging from the soliton's tangent cone at infinity–appearing as a Kähler cone–must coincide with the forward self-similar Kähler-Ricci flow associated with the soliton, provided certain conditions hold. Specifically, if its Kähler form remains in the same cohomology class as that of the soliton's self-similar Kähler-Ricci flow, its full Riemann curvature operator is bounded for each fixed positive time, its Ricci curvature is bounded from above by A/t, its scalar curvature is bounded from below by -A/t, and it shares a same Killing vector field with the soliton metric. This paper gives a partial answer to a question in paper of Feldman-Ilmanen-Knopf, and generalizes the earlier work of Conlon-Deruelle and the work of Conlon-Deruelle-Sun.

In this paper, we study gradient Ricci soitons on smooth orbifolds. We prove that the scalar curvature of a complete shrinking or steady gradient Ricci soliton on an orbifold is nonnegative. We also show that a complete $\kappa$-noncollapsed steady gradient Ricci soliton on a Riemannian orbifold with positive curvature operator, compact singularity and linear curvature decay must be a finite quotient of the Bryant soliton. Finally, we show that a complete steady gradient Ricci soliton on a Riemannian orbifold with positive sectional curvature must be a finite quotient of the Bryant soliton if it is asymptotically quotient cylindrical.

In this paper, we prove that any compact 2-sided smooth stable minimal hypersurface in a shrinking gradient Ricci soliton $(M^n,g,f)$ with scalar curvature $R\ge (n-1)\lambda$ must have vanished second fundamental form and vanished normal Ricci curvature. For shrinking gradient Ricci solitons with scalar curvature $R\ge (n-1)\lambda$, the existence of an area-minimizing hypersurface would imply that $M$ is splitting.

In this survey, we consider various analytic problems related to the geometry of the Chern connection on Hermitian manifolds, such as the existence of metrics with constant Chern-scalar curvature, generalizations of the Kähler-Einstein condition to the non-Kähler setting, and the convergence of the Chern-Ricci flow on compact complex surfaces.

In this paper, we study several properties of Sasaki-Ricci solitons as singularity models of the Sasaki-Ricci flow. First, we establish several fundamental equations for Sasaki-Ricci solitons, which enable us to derive potential estimates and prove the positivity of the scalar curvature. Then we present two criteria for the transverse rigidity of Sasaki-Ricci solitons. As essential applications, we prove that any low-dimensional Sasaki-Ricci soliton with constant scalar curvature must be Sasaki-Einstein, and that any Sasaki-Ricci soliton with harmonic Weyl tensor is a finite quotient of the sphere.

We establish a rigidity theorem for Brendle and Hung's recent systolic inequality, which involves Gromov's notion of $T^{⋊}$-stabilized scalar curvature. Our primary technique is the construction of foliations by free boundary weighted constant mean curvature hypersurfaces, enabling us to generalize several classical scalar curvature rigidity results to the $T^{⋊}$-stabilized setting. Additionally, we develop a monotone quantity using Ricci flow coupled with a heat equation, which is essential for rigidity analysis.

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.

Recent interest among geometers in $f$-structures of K. Yano is due to the study of topology and dynamics of contact foliations, which generalize the flow of the Reeb vector field on contact manifolds to higher dimensions. Weak metric structures introduced by V. Rovenski and R. Wolak as a generalization of Hermitian and Kähler structures, as well as $f$-structures, allow a fresh look at the classical theory. In this paper, we study a new $f$-structure of this kind, called the weak $\beta$-Kenmotsu $f$-structure, as a generalization of K. Kenmotsu's concept. We prove that a weak $\beta$-Kenmotsu $f$-manifold is locally a twisted product of the Euclidean space and a weak Kähler manifold. Our main results show that such manifolds with $\beta =const$ and equipped with an $\eta$-Ricci soliton structure whose potential vector field satisfies certain conditions are $\eta$-Einstein manifolds of constant scalar curvature.

Let $(M,g,f)$ be a $5$-dimensional complete noncompact gradient shrinking Ricci soliton with the equation $Ric+{\nabla }^{2}f=\lambda g$, where $\text{Ric}$ is the Ricci tensor and ${\nabla }^{2}f$ is the Hessian of the potential function $f$. We prove that it is a finite quotient of ${\mathbb{R}}^2\times {\mathbb{S}}^3$ if $M$ has constant scalar curvature $R=3\lambda$.

Suppose $(M^n,g,f)$ is a complete shrinking gradient Ricci soliton. We give several rigidity results under some natural conditions, generalizing the results in. Using maximum principle, we prove that shrinking gradient Ricci soliton with constant scalar curvature $R=1$ is isometric to a finite quotient of ${\mathbb{R}}^2\times {\mathbb{S}}^2$, giving a new proof of the main results of Cheng-Zhou.

In this paper we study $n$-dimensional Ricci flows $(M^n,g(t){)}_{t\in [0,T)},$ where $T<\infty$ is a potentially singular time, and for which the spatial $L^p$ norm, $p>\frac{n}{2}$, of the scalar curvature is uniformly bounded on $[0,T).$ In the case that $M$ is closed and four dimensional, we explain why non-collapsing estimates hold and how they can be combined with integral bounds on the Ricci and full curvature tensor of the prequel paper of the authors, as well as non-inflating estimates (already known due to works of Bamler), to obtain an improved space time integral bound of the Ricci curvature. As an application of these estimates, we show that if we further restrict to $n=4$, then the solution convergences to an orbifold as $t\to T$ and that the flow can be extended using the Orbifold Ricci flow to the time interval $[0,T+\sigma )$ for some $\sigma >0.$ We also prove local versions of many of the results mentioned above.

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.

We classify spin ALE ancient Ricci flows and spin ALE expanding solitons with suitable groups at infinity. In particular, the only spin ancient Ricci flows with groups at infinity in $SU(2)$ and mild decay at infinity are hyperkähler ALE metrics. The main idea of the proof, of independent interest, consists in showing that the large-scale behavior of Perelman's $\mu$-functional on any ALE orbifold with non-negative scalar curvature is controlled by a renormalized ${\lambda }_{\mathrm{ALE}}$-functional related to a notion of weighted mass.

In this work, we study the short-time existence theory of Ricci-DeTurck flow starting from rough metrics which satisfy a Morrey-type integrability condition. Using the rough existence theory, we show the preservation and improvement of distributional scalar curvature lower bounds provided the singular set for such metrics is not too large. As an application, we use the Ricci flow smoothing to study the removable singularity for scalar curvature rigidity in the compact case under Morrey regularity conditions. Our result supplements those of Jiang-Sheng-Zhang.

In this paper we prove localised weighted curvature integral estimates for solutions to the Ricci flow in the setting of a smooth four dimensional Ricci flow or a closed $n$-dimensional Kähler Ricci flow. These integral estimates improve and extend the integral curvature estimates shown by the second author in an earlier paper. If the scalar curvature is uniformly bounded in the spatial $L^p$ sense for some $p>2,$ then the estimates imply a uniform bound on the spatial $L^2$ norm of the Riemannian curvature tensor. Stronger integral estimates are shown to hold if one further assumes a weak non-inflating condition, or we restrict to closed manifolds.

Let $(M,g,\omega ,f,\lambda )$ be a Kähler gradient Ricci soliton in real dimension four. One first observes that it is an integrable Hamiltonian system in a classical sense. Indeed, all known complete examples are toric and the symmetry is intrinsically related to the potential function $f$ and the scalar curvature $\text{SS}$. While another article addresses the case that these functions are functionally dependent, this one considers the independent case. The main result states that the soliton admits a toric action under a generic assumption. That is, one assumes that the system is non-degenerate and the potential function $f$ is proper. Then there is an effective, completely integrable Hamiltonian toric ${\mathbb{T}}^2$- action on $(M,\omega )$.

Building on works of Boulanger and Goto, we show that Goto's scalar curvature is the moment map for an action of generalized Hamiltonian automorphisms of the associated Courant algebroid, constrained by the choice of an adapted volume form. We derive an explicit formula for Goto's scalar curvature, and show that it is constant for generalized Kähler-Ricci solitons. Restricting to the generically symplectic type case, we realize the generalized Kähler class as the complexified orbit of the Hamiltonian action above. This leads to a natural extension of Mabuchi's metric and $K$-energy, implying a conditional uniqueness result. Finally, in this setting we derive a Calabi-Matsushima-Lichnerowicz obstruction and a Futaki invariant.

We establish three circles theorems for subharmonic functions on Riemannian manifolds with nonnegative Ricci curvature, as well as on gradient shrinking Ricci solitons with scalar curvature bounded from below by $\frac{n-2}{2}$. We also establish a three circiles theorem for holomorphic functions on gradient shrinking Kähler-Ricci solitons with some curvature conditions. As applications, we prove some Liouville type theorems.