Ricci Flow of 3-D Manifolds with One Killing Vector

Abstract

We implement a suggestion by Bakas and consider the Ricci flow of 3-d manifolds with one Killing vector by dimensional reduction to the corresponding flow of a 2-d manifold plus scalar (dilaton) field. By suitably modifying the flow equations in order to make them manifestly parabolic, we are able to show that the equations for the 2-d geometry can be put in the form explicitly solved by Bakas using a continual analogue of the Toda field equations. The only remaining equation, namely that of the scale factor of the extra dimension, is a linear equation that can be readily solved using standard techniques once the 2-geometry is specified. We illustrate the method with a couple of specific examples.