Integral Ricci curvature bounds along geodesics for nonexpanding gradient Ricci solitons (Q1759651)

A gradient Ricci soliton is a Riemannian manifold \((\mathcal M,g)\) with a potential function \(f\) that satisfies the equation \[ \mathrm{Ric} + \nabla \nabla f + \epsilon g=0, \] where \(\mathrm{Ric}\) is the Ricci curvature and \(\epsilon\) a constant. Shrinking and steady gradient solitons (\(\epsilon < 0\) resp. \(\epsilon = 0\)) have wide applications in the Ricci flow, for example arising as finite time singularity models. Inspired by [\textit{P. Li} and \textit{S.-T. Yau}, Acta Math. 156, 154--201 (1986; Zbl 0611.58045); \textit{G. Perelman}, ``The entropy formula for the Ricci flow and its geometric applications'', Preprint (2002; Zbl 1130.53001), \url{arXiv:math.DG/0211159}], the authors define an energy functional associated to a smooth function \(\phi\), which they use to establish integral Ricci-curvature upper bounds for complete steady and shrinking gradient Ricci solitons along modified geodesics. Letting \(\phi:\mathcal M \rightarrow \mathbb R\) be a smooth function that is uniformly bounded below, and \(\gamma:[0,\bar{s}] \rightarrow \mathcal M\) a path ( \(\bar s > 0\)), the functional is defined by \[ \mathcal{I}(\gamma) = \int_0^{\bar s} (|\gamma'(s)|^2 + 2 \phi(\gamma(s)))\mathrm{d}s. \] The analysis proceeds via a second variation argument to obtain a geodesic integral bound for the \(f\)-Laplacian (\(\Delta - \nabla f \cdot \nabla )\) of the scalar curvature.