Characterizations of the Ricci flow (Q1751617)

In this paper, the authors characterize some interesting properties of the Ricci flow on a Riemannian manifold from the viewpoint of probability theory. The path space \({\mathcal M}=M\times I\) associated to a family \((M,g_t)_{t\in I}\) of Riemannian manifolds is considered. The first characterization says that \((M,g_t)_{t\in I}\) evolves by the Ricci flow iff an infinite-dimensional gradient estimate holds for all functions on \(\mathcal M\). More precisely, let \(P_T{\mathcal M}\) be its path space, equipped with the Wiener measure and the parallel gradient. \((M,g_t)_{t\in I}\) evolves by the Ricci flow iff the gradient estimate \[ \left|\nabla_x\int_{P_T{\mathcal M}}Fd\Gamma_{(x,T)}\right|\leq \int_{P_T{\mathcal M}} |\nabla_xF|d\Gamma_{(x,T)} \] holds for all functions \(F\in L^2(P_T{\mathcal M},\Gamma_T)\) (for a.e. \((x,T)\in {\mathcal M}=M\times I\)). This estimate generalizes the Bakry-Emery-Ledoux estimates for manifolds with certain bounded curvature. They also give the characterizations in terms of \(C^{1/2}\)-regularity of martingales on the path space, as well as log-Sobolev inequality (such type of inequality was first discovered by \textit{G. Perelman} [arXiv e-print service , Paper No. 0211159, 39 p. (2002; Zbl 1130.53001)]) and the spectral gap inequality. Based on the above characterizations, a notion of weak solutions to the Ricci flow is defined. All the estimates obtained in the paper rely heavily on doing stochastic analysis on the path space. There are many directions to be explored in this aspect.