Gradient Kähler-Ricci solitons and periodic orbits (Q5929582)

A solution metric \(g_{i\bar j}\) of the Ricci flow \({\partial \over \partial t} g_{i\bar j} = -R_{i\bar j}\) on a complex manifold \(X\) is called a gradient Kähler-Ricci soliton if it moves by a one-parameter family of biholomorphisms of \(X\) generated by a holomorphic gradient vector field; its Ricci tensor is given by \(R_{i\bar j} = f_{i\bar j}\), where \(f\) is a real-valued function on \(X\) with \(f_{,ij}\) = 0. Solitons are important in the study of singularities of Ricci flow because they often arise as limits of dilations of singularities. The authors study the structure of gradient Kähler--Ricci solitons that arise in this way. The main result is that if there exists a complete gradient Kähler--Ricci soliton \(g_{i\bar j}\) on a noncompact complex manifold \(X\) with positive Ricci curvature, such that the scalar curvature \(R\) assumes its maximum in space-time, then \(X\) must be a Stein manifold. Furthermore, near each level surface \(S_{c}=\{f=c\}\subset X\), there exists a periodic orbit for the Hamiltonian vector field of the potential function \(f\) with respect to the Kähler form \(\omega\) of \(g_{i\bar j}\). In the proof the authors show that \(X\), with Ricci form \(\rho = \sqrt{-1}\partial \bar \partial f\) as its symplectic form, can be symplectically embedded into \( \mathbb{C^{n}}\) with the standard symplectic form. They then use a result of Eliashberg and Gromov to show the existence of a symplectic embedding of a neighborhood of \(S_{c}\) with symplectic form \(\omega\), into \((X,\rho)\). The symplectic capacity theory of Hofer and Zehnder is then applied to prove the existence of periodic orbits.