164 5. THE RICCI FLOW ON SURFACES
LEMMA 5.92. If (M^2 , g (t)) is a solution of the Ricci flow on a topological
2-sphere, the isoperimetric ratios CH (p, t) of the parallel loops '"'(p measured
with respect to the metric g (t) satisfy the heat-type equation
a 82 r a 4n - cH (A+ A_)
at (log CH)= 8p2 (log CH)+ L. op (log CH)+ A A_+ A+ '
where
r ~ 1 kds.
rp
PROOF. Notice that
log CH= 2logL - log A+ - log A_+ log A.
By Lemmas 5.90 and 5.91, we have
8 8
2
8
2
( 8 )
2
at (logL) = L-^1 op 2 L = op 2 (logL) + op (logL)
82 r a
= - (logL) + - · - (logL).
ap^2 L op
Similarly, we obtain
:t (log A±) = A±^1 [ :; 2 A± - 4n ± r]
=
82
(log A±)+ (~(log A±))
2
4
n ± _!:__
ap^2 op A± A±
8
2
( L )
2
= - (log A±) + - - - + -4n r · -^8 (log A±) ,
8p2 A± A± L op
because L = ± (8A±/8p). Finally. we recall (5.50) to get
d 8n
dt (log A)= -A.
The lemma follows when we combine these results with the identities
4n (A+ +A) = 4n (A++ A)
2
- 2A+A-= 4n + 4n 8n
A A A+ A+ +A- A+A- A+ A_ A
and
D
If CH < 4n, then Lemma 5.92 shows that log CH is a supersolution
of a type of heat equation. This leads one to expect that it should be
nondecreasing. We now prove this rigorously.