Uniqueness of weak solutions to the Ricci flow
Uniqueness of weak solutions to the Ricci flow
In his resolution of the Poincaré and Geometrization Conjectures, Perelman constructed Ricci flows in which singularities are removed by a surgery process. His construction depended on various auxiliary parameters, such as the scale at which surgeries are performed. At the same time, Perelman conjectured that there must be a canonical flow that automatically "flows through its surgeries”, at an infinitesimal scale. Recently, Kleiner and Lott constructed so-called Ricci flow space-times, which exhibit this desired behavior. In this talk, I will first review their construction. I will then present recent work of Bruce Kleiner and myself, in which we show that these Ricci flow space-times are in fact unique and fully determined by their initial data. Therefore, these flows can be viewed as “canonical”, hence confirming Perelman’s Conjecture. I will also discuss further applications of this uniqueness statement.