Convergence of Ricci flow on \(\mathbb R^2\) to the plane (Q387052)

The author finds new sufficient conditions for global existence and convergence to a flat metric of the Ricci flow on \(\mathbb R^2\) with conformally flat initial metric. (See also [\textit{L.-F. Wu}, Commun. Anal. Geom. 1, No. 3, 439--472 (1993; Zbl 0854.58011); \textit{J. Isenberg} and \textit{M. Javaheri}, J. Geom. Anal. 19, No. 4, 809--816 (2009; Zbl 1176.53066)] for related results.) More precisely, she proves the following theorem: Theorem. Suppose \(g_0=e^{u_0}g_E\) has bounded curvature \(R_0\) with \(|\nabla u_0 |_{g_{0}}\) uniformly bounded on \(\mathbb R^2\). Assume that there is a bounded smooth function \(f_0\) on \(\mathbb R^2\) such that \(\Delta_{g_0} f_0=R_0\). Then the Ricci flow \(\partial_t g=-Rg\) with the initial metric \(g_0\) exists for all \(t \geq 0\) and has modified subsequence convergence at time infinity to the flat metric in the \(C^k\) topology of metrics on compact domains in \(\mathbb R^2\) for each \(k \geq 2\). Here, \(g_E\) is the Euclidean metric, and \textit{modified subsequence convergence} means that there exists a one-parameter family of diffeomorphisms \(\phi(t)\), such that for any sequence \(t_i \rightarrow \infty\), there exists a subsequence \(t_{i_k}\) such that the pullbacks \(\phi(t_{i_k})^*g(t_{i_k})\) of the solution \(g\) converge uniformly to a limiting metric on compact sets.