On 3-manifolds with pointwise pinched nonnegative Ricci curvature (Q6198275)

The author studies the problem of whether complete, non-compact three-manifolds with non-negatively pinched Ricci curvature are necessarily flat. This problem traces its origins back to Hamilton's work, where an extrinsic version was established. Specifically, \textit{R. S. Hamilton}, [Commun. Anal. Geom. 2, No. 1, 167--172 (1994; Zbl 0843.53002)] proved that complete, non-compact hypersurfaces of Euclidean space with pinched non-negative second fundamental forms are necessarily flat. In the intrinsic case, the problem was initially addressed by \textit{B. Chen} and \textit{X. Zhu}, [Invent. Math. 140, No. 2, 423--452 (2000; Zbl 0957.53011)] under the additional assumption of bounded non-negative sectional curvature. In this paper, the author considers a generalization of Chen and Zhu's approach without assuming non-negativity of sectional curvature. In particular, he proves that under bounded non-negatively pinched Ricci curvature, the metric can be deformed by Ricci flow for all time. Moreover, he shows that if the flow is initially non-flat, then it must be non-collapsing, implying that the initial data must exhibit Euclidean volume growth. Leveraging this result, the author considers cases with sectional curvature bounded from below quadratically, employing results from Alexandrov geometry.