Manifolds with positive curvature operators are space forms


Christoph Böhm

University of Münster

October 30, 2006


Abstract: We confirm the following conjecture of Hamilton: On a compact manifold the normalized Ricci flow evolves a Riemannian metric with positive curvature operator to a limit metric with constant sectional curvature. The proof is based on Hamilton's maximum principle and a new algebraic identity for curvature operators. Joint work with B. Wilking.