130 20. COMPACTNESS OF THE SPACE OF ,,;-SOLUTIONS
2.1. Volume collapsing on large space-time scales.
The following is Corollary 11.5 in Perelman's [152]. We may think of
this result as a quantitative or approximate version of the fact that nonfiat
ancient solutions (not necessarily 11;-noncollapsed) with bounded Rm 2: 0
have AVR = 0 (Corollary 20.2). As is usual for such a result, this is proved
by contradiction.
PROPOSITION 20.4 (Almost ancient solutions with bounded Rm 2: 0
are collapsed at large scales). For every s > 0 there exists A < oo with the
following property: Suppose we have a sequence of (not necessarily complete)
solutions (Mk, gk ( t)), t E [tk, OJ, n 2: 2, with nonnegative curvature operator
and with Xk E Mk and rk E (0, oo) such that
(1) (relatively compact balls) for each k the ball Bgk(o)(xk,rk) is com-
pactly contained in )Vlk,
(2) (curvature bounds on parabolic cylinders)
1
(20.5) 2,Rgk(x,t):::; Rgk(xk,O) ~ Qk
for all (x, t) E Bgk(O) (xk, rk) x (tk, O], and
(3) (parabolic cylinders are large) ask-+ oo,
(20.6) tkQk -+ -oo, r~Qk -+ oo.
Then the volume ratios satisfy
Volgk(o) Bgk(o) (xk, AQk
112
)
( )
n < c
AQk1/2 -
(20.7)
provided k is sufficiently large. That is, we have small volume ratios at large
scales.
REMARK 20.5. Properties (20.5) and (20.6) say that the dilated solutions
9k(t) ~ Qk · gk(Q"k^1 t), t E [tkQk, 0],
are 'almost ancient' (since tkQk -+ -oo) and have uniformly bounded cur-
vatures on larger and larger balls (since rkQk/^2 -+ oo)
R 9 k (x, t) :::; 2
for all (x, t) E B 9 k(o)(xk, rkQk^12 ) x (tkQk, OJ.
PROOF. We prove the proposition by contradiction. If the proposition is
false, then by diagonalization there exist n 2: 2 and sequences (Mk,gk(t)),
t E [tk, OJ, with Rmgk(t) 2: 0, Xk E Mk and rk E (0, oo) satisfying hypotheses
(1)-(3) and there exist so > 0 and a sequence Ak -+ oo such that
Vol gk(o)Bgk(o) (xk, AkQk1/2)
( I )
n 2: so for all k.
AkQk1 2