Stability of Kähler-Ricci flow on a Fano manifold (Q2392799)

In this paper the author proves a stability result for Kähler-Einstein metrics (KE) or Kähler-Ricci solitons (KRS) on Fano manifolds. More specifically, if the initial Kähler metric is near a Kähler-Ricci soliton with small Kähler potential (with respect to KRS) in the \(C^{2, \alpha}\)-norm, then modulo a family of holomorphic transformations, the normalized Kähler potential along the flow is uniformly bounded in the \(C^k\)-norm for any \(k\). As a consequence, the flow then converges to a KRS in smooth topology by a subsequence. Exponential convergence is also obtained if the initial metric is assumed to be invariant under the imaginary part of extremal vector field for KRS (this condition is vacuum for Kähler-Einstein metric). An important point is that the author proves the stability for non-invariant initial metrics. One main point of the arguments is that when there are nontrivial holomorphic vector fields, the author uses the Futaki invariant (modified Futaki invariant) to overcome the difficulty caused by holomorphic transformations. Roughly speaking, he shows that after appropriate choice of holomorphisms, the Kähler-Ricci flow is transverse to the first eigenspace of Laplacian (modified Laplacian) of the Kähler-Einstein metric (KRS), which consists of potentials of holomorphic vector fields, in a uniform way if the initial metric is closed to Kähler-Einstein metric (KRS). The vanishing of the Futaki invariant (modified Futaki invariant) plays an essential role. Conceptually, the proof is very direct, even though technically it is rather complicated for the KRS case. Such an approach for the stability problem should also work for many other geometric flows. For example, similar ideas were used by \textit{X. X. Chen} for the convergence of the Calabi flow on the 2-sphere [Int. Math. Res. Not. 2001, No. 6, 275--297 (2001; Zbl 1078.53065)] and \textit{X. X. Chen} and the reviewer for the stability of constant scalar metrics along the Calabi flow [Am. J. Math. 130, No. 2, 539--570 (2008; Zbl 1204.53050)]. The main result of the paper is used in the papers by \textit{G. Tian} and the author [J. Reine Angew. Math. 678, 223--245 (2013 Zbl 1276.14061)] and by \textit{G. Tian} et al. [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 365, No. 12, 6669--6695 (2013; Zbl 1298.53037)] to show that the Kähler-Ricci flow converges to a KRS for any initial metric if there exists a KRS.