The Calabi flow on toric Fano surfaces (Q2275689)

This is a continuation of earlier work by the authors on the Calabi flow [``On the Calabi flow'', Am. J. Math. 130, No.~2, 539--570 (2008; Zbl 1204.53050), ``The Calabi flow on Kähler surface with bounded Sobolev constant'', \url{arXiv:0710.5159}]. They use results concerning the formation of singularities along the Calabi flow on Kähler surfaces which appeared in the latter work. The search for extremal Kähler metrics is a very hot topic in Kähler geometry and many people have been contributing in this effort. The Calabi flow is an effective tool for exploring the existence of extremal metrics on compact Kähler manifolds. One of the main problems arising in the study of the Calabi flow is long-time existence. Also, in the present work there is a first attempt to understand a conjecture by the first author: starting from any smooth Kähler metric on a compact Kähler manifold (of complex dimension \(n\geq 2\)), the Calabi flow exists for all positive times. The main result is the following: Let \((M, [\omega], J)\) be a toric Fano surface with positive extremal Hamiltonian potential. If the Calabi flow has a Kähler metric with toric symmetry for initial data which satisfies \[ \int_MR^2dV_g<\mathcal{B}([\omega]), \] then the Calabi flow exists for all time and converges in a subsequence to an extremal metric in \([\omega]\) in the Cheeger-Gromov sense.