Eternal solutions to the Ricci flow (Q688603)

A Ricci flow is a family of Riemannian metrics \(g = g(t)\) on a fixed manifold \(X\) such that \({\partial g\over \partial t} = -2 \text{Ric}\). (Let \text{Riem}, \text{Ric}, \(R\) denote the curvature tensor, Ricci tensor, scalar curvature respectively to \(g\).) It is assumed here to be eternal, i.e. to be defined for all times \(-\infty < t < +\infty\), and each \((X,g(t))\) is by assumption complete, simply connected, and with uniformly bounded curvature. The author requires moreover \(\text{Riem} > 0\) at events (x,t) where \({\partial R\over \partial t} = 0\). He shows that then there is a function \(f = f(x,t)\) such that \(\text{Ric} = \text{Hess }f\), in components \(R_{ij} = \nabla_ i \nabla_ j f\).