Cross curvature flow on a negatively curved solid torus (Q969646)

The classic \(2\pi\)-theorem of \textit{M. Gromov} and \textit{W. Thurston} [Invent. Math. 89, 1--12 (1987; Zbl 0646.53037)]constructs a negatively curved metric on certain 3-manifolds obtained by Dehn filling. By geometrization, any such manifold admits a hyperbolic metric. On the other hand, \textit{B. Chow} and \textit{R. S. Hamilton} [Turk. J. Math. 28, No. 1, 1--10 (2004; Zbl 1064.53045)] introduced the cross curvature flow in 2004. The aim of this paper is to outline a program that uses the cross curvature flow to answer certain questions inspired by the \(2\pi\)-Theorem. The goal of the program, which is partially motivated by Hodgson and Kerckhoff, is to use the cross curvature flow to construct a smooth one-parameter family of metrics between the ``\(2\pi\)-metric'' and the hyperbolic metric. It contributes to the application of curvature flows to the study of hyperbolic 3-manifolds. As a first step in their program, the authors study the cross curvature flow on a class of negatively curved metrics on the solid torus, which is the simplest nontrivial handlebody. They present a nice suite of results, including short- and long-time existence, uniqueness, and curvature bounds. These results also provide evidence in favor of the Chow-Hamilton conjectures for the cross curvature flow.