Equivariant Ricci flow with surgery and applications to finite group actions on geometric 3-manifolds (Q1006150)

The paper under review proves that smooth finite group actions on hyperbolic and spherical closed 3-manifolds are conjugate to isometric actions. This is also proved for \(S^2\times S^1\) with the standard metric. All these theorems together, with results of \textit{W. H. Meeks} and \textit{P. Scott} [Invent. Math. 86, 287--346 (1986; Zbl 0626.57006)] imply that smooth finite group actions on three manifolds are always geometric in the sense of Thurston. The actions may be nonorientable. The main tool is an equivariant version of Perelman's proof of geometrization, namely an equivariant Ricci flow with surgery. Starting with an equivariant metric, the Ricci flow itself is equivariant, but the surgery process and the final convergence of metrics need a careful analysis, which is done here. This requires in particular some topological preliminary results about actions on balls and connected sums. In the surgery process, the authors control the action on \(\kappa\)-solutions, standard solutions, the neck-like regions, and caps. With this control, they conclude that actions are standard when the Ricci flow becomes extinct, or when it converges to a hyperbolic metric.