English

Fokker-Planck Dynamics and Entropies for the Normalized Ricci Flow

Differential Geometry 2008-01-24 v3 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology Mathematical Physics math.MP

Abstract

We consider some elementary aspects of the geometry of the space of probability measures endowed with Wasserstein distance. In such a setting, we discuss the various terms entering Perelman's shrinker entropy, and characterize two new monotonic functionals for the volume-normalized Ricci flow. One is obtained by a rescaling of the curvature term in the shrinker entropy. The second is associated with a gradient flow obtained by adding a curvature-drift to Perelman's backward heat equation. We show that the resulting Fokker-Planck PDE is the natural diffusion flow for probability measures absolutely continuous with respect to the Ricci-evolved Riemannian measure, we discuss its exponential trend to equilibrium, and its relation with the viscous Hamilton-Jacobi equation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0507309,
  title  = {Fokker-Planck Dynamics and Entropies for the Normalized Ricci Flow},
  author = {Mauro Carfora},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0507309},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

48 pages, Latex;. This is the final version of the paper. References have been updated. This version contains an extended analysis of the relation between Fokker-Planck dynamics, along the backward Ricci flow, and the Wasserstein geometry on the space of probability measures

R2 v1 2026-07-22T17:22:09.699Z