Ricci DeTurck flow on incomplete manifolds (Q2153705)

In this paper the authors obtain a Ricci DeTurck flow on any incomplete Riemannian manifold with bounded curvature. Together with an analogue result for complete manifolds proved by \textit{W.-X. Shi} [J. Differ. Geom. 30, No. 1, 223--301 (1989; Zbl 0676.53044)] it means, as mentioned in the abstract, that one can state that any (complete or incomplete) manifold of bounded curvature can be evolved by the Ricci DeTurck flow for a short time. Let \((M, \tilde{g})\), be a \(n\)-dimensional, smooth and possibly incomplete Riemannian manifold. Let \(\widetilde{Rm}\) be the corresponding Riemannian curvature tensor and \(|\widetilde{Rm}|\) its pointwise norm with respect to \(\tilde{g}\). The Ricci DeTurck flow of \((M, \tilde{g})\) is a smooth family \(g(t)\), \(t \in [0, T ]\), of Riemannian metrics on \(M\), solving a specific initial valued differential equation, say (A). The main theorem proved by the authors states that if \(|\widetilde{Rm}|^2 \leq k_0\) for some constant \(k_0\), then there exists \(T (n, k_0) > 0\), depending only on \(n\) and \(k_0\), such that the initial value problem (A) has a smooth solution \(g(t)\) for \(t \in [0, T (n, k_0)]\). Furthermore, for any \(\delta>0\) there exists \(0<T(n,k_0,\delta) \leq T(n,k_0)\), depending on \(n\), \(k_0\) and \(\delta\) such that \((1-\delta) \widetilde{g}(x) \leq g(x,t) \leq (1+\delta)\tilde {g}(x)\) for all \((x,t) \in M \times [0, T(n,k_0, \delta)]\). The authors also prove that under some conditions of upper boundness for \(|\widetilde{\nabla}^m \widetilde{Rm}|\) one obtains upper boundness constants for \(|\widetilde{\nabla}^mg|\), \( |Rm|\) and \(|\nabla^m Rm|\). In the introduction it is remarked that the short-time existence and further properties of a Ricci DeTurck flow on incomplete manifolds has already been established in some special cases. In this paper however, the authors prove that such a Ricci DeTurck flow, preserving the initial singularity structure, exists on any arbitrary incomplete manifold of bounded curvature. The authors also establish explicit estimates for arbitrary higher derivatives of the metric and for the Riemann curvature tensor along the flow, and conjecture that this flow coincides with the Ricci DeTurck flow on wedge manifolds, introduced by the second author [J. Geom. Anal. 31, No. 4, 3351--3404 (2021; Zbl 1476.53118)]. The paper consists of seven sections. In Section 2 the authors give a review from \textit{W.-X. Shi}'s results [loc. cit.]. Section 3 deals with the geometry of incomplete manifolds. In Sections 4, 5 and 6 a priori estimates for \(g\), \(2g\) and \(gm\) along the flow are given. Section 7 deals with the proof of the main theorem and the last section deals with open problems and future lines of research.