Gromov-Hausdorff convergence of time-slices of singular Ricci flows in dimension three

Abstract

Starting from a closed, orientable three-dimensional Riemannian manifold, we consider the completion of the associated singular Ricci flow with respect to a natural spacetime distance. We show that this completion admits canonical intrinsic metrics on its time-slices, defined by conjugate heat kernel measures, and that these time-slices arise as metric limits of the regular part of the flow. More precisely, for any $t_0>0$ and any connected component $Z_{t_0}^{\prime }$ of the time-slice $Z_{t_0}$ of the completion, we prove that \[ (\overline{\mathcal R_t'},d_{g_t}) \xrightarrow[t\nearrow t_0]{\mathrm{Gromov\text{-}Hausdorff}} (Z_{t_0}',d_{t_0}^Z), \] where ${\mathcal{R}}_t^{\prime }$ is the corresponding connected component of the regular part and $\overline{{\mathcal{R}}_t^{\prime }}$ denotes its metric completion. In particular, this yields the Gromov-Hausdorff convergence at the first singular time for closed three-dimensional Ricci flows. We also establish a refined structure theory for the singular set of the completion. In particular, the singular set is horizontally parabolic $1$-rectifiable, and its time image has vanishing $1/2$-dimensional Hausdorff measure. Moreover, on each time-slice, the singular set has Minkowski dimension at most $1$. The proof relies on heat kernel estimates for singular Ricci flows and the generalization of the structure theory of noncollapsed Ricci flow limit spaces.

Revised version. The spacetime distance and related arguments have been updated following arXiv:2510.12398v3; all main results remain unchanged