Recent Developments
The Ricci flow has been intensively studied since 1981. Some recent work has focused on the question of precisely how higher-dimensional Riemannian manifolds evolve under the Ricci flow, and in particular, what types of parametric singularities may form. For instance, a certain class of solutions to the Ricci flow demonstrates that neckpinch singularities will form on an evolving n-dimensional metric Riemannian manifold having a certain topological property (positive Euler characteristic), as the flow approaches some characteristic time . In certain cases, such neckpinches will produce manifolds called Ricci solitons.
There are many related geometric flows, some of which (such as the Yamabe flow and the Calabi flow) have properties similar to the Ricci flow.
Read more about this topic: Ricci Flow
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