On the regular-convexity of Ricci shrinker limit spaces

Abstract

In this paper, we study the structure of the pointed-Gromov-Hausdorff limits of sequences of Ricci shrinkers. We define a regular-singular decomposition following the work of Cheeger-Colding for manifolds with a uniform Ricci curvature lower bound, and prove that the regular part of any Ricci shrinker limit space is convex, inspired by Colding-Naber's original idea of parabolic smoothing of the distance functions.

revised version, to appear in J. Reine Angew. Math