Rigidity of complex projective spaces in Ricci shrinkers (Q6098492)

The paper focuses on the rigidity of compact Ricci shrinkers, which are Riemannian manifolds satisfying a certain equation involving the Ricci curvature and a potential function. The authors prove the rigidity of the complex projective space \(\mathbb{CP}^N\) with its standard Fubini-Study metric as a Ricci shrinker. Rigidity means that \(\mathbb{CP}^N\) (always considered with the Fubini-Study metric) is the only Ricci shrinker close to it in the Gromov-Hausdorff sense. In the higher-dimensional cases, little is known about the classification of Ricci shrinkers. Under certain conditions, the moduli space of Ricci shrinkers satisfies weak compactness, meaning that any sequence of Ricci shrinkers with uniform entropy bound converges to a Ricci shrinker limit space. In dimension 4, the limit is a smooth Ricci shrinker orbifold, and in higher dimensions, the limit space is a Ricci shrinker conifold. The main result of the paper is a rigidity theorem for \(\mathbb{CP}^N\). It states that \(\mathbb{CP}^N\) is the only Ricci shrinker close to it, up to a certain small constant, in the pointed Gromov-Hausdorff sense. The proof relies on the weak-compactness theory of Ricci shrinkers and the deformation theory of Ricci shrinkers. The authors show that any infinitesimal solitonic deformation of \(\mathbb{CP}^N\) is not integrable up to the third order, leading to the conclusion that \(\mathbb{CP}^N\) is rigid as a Ricci shrinker. The paper also discusses the rigidity of product Ricci shrinkers with \(\mathbb{CP}^N\) as a factor.