Ricci flow and birational surgery

Abstract

We study the formation of finite time singularities of the Kahler-Ricci flow in relation to high codimensional birational surgery in algebraic geometry. We show that the Kahler-Ricci flow on an n-dimensionl Kahler manifold contracts a complex submanifold $\mathbb{P}^m$ with normal bundle $\oplus_{j=1}^{n-m}\mathcal{O}_{\mathbb{P}^m}(-a_j)$ for $a_j\in\mathbb{Z}^+$ and $\sum_{j=1}^{n-m} a_j \leq m$ in Gromov-Hausdorff topology with suitable initial Kahler class. We also show that the Kahler-Ricci flow resolves a family of isolated singularities uniquely in Gromov-Hausdorff topology. In particular, we construct global and local examples of metric flips by the Kahler-Ricci flow as a continuous path in Gromov-Hausdorff topology.