Ricci flow of negatively curved incomplete surfaces (Q982173)

In 1982, \textit{R. S. Hamilton} [J. Differ. Geom. 17, 255--306 (1982; Zbl 0504.53034)] initiated the study of Ricci flow, which evolves a Riemannian metric \(g\) on a manifold \(\mathcal{M}\) under the following evolution equation \[ \frac{\partial}{\partial t}g(t) = -2\text{Ric}[g(t)]. \] From then on there has been much research on this topic. In this paper the authors prove, under the assumption that the flows become complete instantaneously, the uniqueness of Ricci flows starting at a surface with uniformly negative curvature. This newly obtained uniqueness result together with the more general existence result proved by the last author [J. Eur. Math. Soc. (JEMS) 12, No. 6, 1429--1451 (2010; Zbl 1202.53067)] can settle the issue of well-posedness in this class.