Complete gradient shrinking Ricci solitons with pinched curvature (Q1938074)

The author generalizes previous results on the classification of complete gradient shrinking Ricci solitons by considering manifolds with a non-negative Ricci tensor and a pinching condition on the Weyl tensor. The pinching condition is automatically satisfied for manifolds of dimension three where the Weyl tensor vanishes, while, for \(n \geq 4\), the existing results on locally conformally flat gradient shrinkers are recovered. The main result of the paper states that any \(n\)-dimensional complete gradient Ricci shrinking soliton with non-negative Ricci curvature \(R\) and Weyl pinching condition \[ |W| R \leq \sqrt{\frac{2(n-1)}{n-2}} \left( |\hat{Ric}|- \frac{1}{\sqrt{n(n-1)}}R \right)^2, \] where \(\hat{Ric}= Ric - \frac{1}{n}R g\) is the traceless Ricci tensor, is a finite quotient of \(\mathbb{R}^n, \mathbb{R}\times \mathbb{S}^{n-1}\) or \(\mathbb{S}^n\).