Ricci Flow and Geometrization of 3-Manifolds

December 9 to 13, 2003

at the

American Institute of Mathematics, Palo Alto, California

organized by

Ian Agol, Ben Chow, Tobias Colding, David Gabai, and Bruce Kleiner

This workshop, sponsored by AIM and the NSF, will focus on Perelman's recent work on Thurston's geometrization conjecture using Hamilton's Ricci flow.

In Hamilton's program one studies the behavior of solutions to the Ricci flow starting with an arbitrary metric on a closed 3-manifold. The goal is to infer the existence of a geometric decomposition on the underlying 3-manifold from the behavior of the metric evolving by Ricci flow with surgeries. In general, singularities form, where the curvature becomes unbounded. The analysis of the singularities allows one to perform geometric-topological surgeries and to continue the flow. The existence of a geometric structure is related to the limiting behavior of the solution for large time.

This workshop is the first part of a two week program, the second part of which will take place at MSRI the following week. There will be a series of interactive lectures on key parts of Perelman's work, as well as organized discussion sessions and smaller group activities. The second week at MSRI will have a similar format, but will be accompanied by other lectures aimed at a broader audience (see the MSRI homepage for more details).

The deadline to apply for funding to participate in this workshop has passed.


Some material from this workshop is available.


Go to the American Institute of Mathematics.
Return to the AIM Research Conference Center.