Hamilton's injectivity radius estimate for sequences with almost nonnegative curvature operators (Q1811419)

In his fundamental paper ``The formation of singularities in the Ricci flow'' [Surv. Differ. Geom. 2, 7 -- 136 (1995; Zbl 0867.53030)], \textit{R. S. Hamilton} gave a partial classification of the singularities of the Ricci flow which form in low dimensions. The three-dimensional case is crucial for Hamilton's approach to the geometrization conjecture. The tools of Gromov-Hausdorff convergence can be used to understand the limits of sequences of solutions provided one can estimate the injectivity radius from below. In his above paper, Hamilton claimed such an injectivity radius bound for a subsequence of a sequence of complete solutions for the Ricci flow with bounded curvature on a common time interval and such that (1) the diameter of the manifolds in the sequence is unbounded, (2) the curvature operator is asymptotically nonnegative along the sequence and (3) the curvatures at a sequence of basepoints are bounded from below by a uniform positive constant. The authors give a complete and correct proof of this injectivity estimate along the outline of Hamilton's original argument but with some substantial modifications and corrections. The paper is very carefully written, and the authors also discuss in some detail some subtle points related to the possibility of collapsing which Hamilton seems to have overlooked.