200 6. THREE-MANIFOLDS OF POSITIVE RICCI CURVATURE
where C and I == 5 /2 depend only on go. On the other hand, it follows from
formula (6.6) that
.§_R^2 -^1 = ~ (R^2 -^1 ) - (2 -1) (1 -1) R-^1 l\7 Rl^2 + 2 (2 -1) R^1 -^1 IRcl^2.
8t
Choose "/3 depending only on go such that
and recall that
{3-< (Rmin (0))
1
O< - 3(2- 1)(1-1)'
IV Rl^2 :S 3 l\7 Rcl^2.
(This is a consequence of (6.46), but is easy to prove directly.) Then for any
f3 E [O, "/JJ, one has an estimate
:t (V - {3R2-1) :S ~ (V - /3R2-1)
- [!3 (2 - 1) (1 - 1) R-^1 1v R l^2 - IV Rcl^2 ]
+ CR^3 -^21 - 2(3 (2 -1) R^1 -^1 IRcl^2
:S ~ (V - {3R^2 -^1 ) + C1,
where C1 depends only on f3 and go. By the maximum principle, we conclude
that
V - {3R^2 -^1 :S Cit.
But formula (6.6) implies that
.§_R 8t > - ~R + ~R 3 2 · )
as we shall see in Lemma 6.53, this forces the solution to become singular
within a finite time T depending only on go. Hence we conclude that
IV R l2 < v < {3R2-1 + c T.
R - - i
D
7. Higher derivative estimates and long-time existence
If go is a smooth metric on a compact manifold Mn, Theorem 3.13
implies that a unique solution g (t) of the Ricci fl.ow satisfying g (0) = go
exists for a short time. It follows that there is a maximal time interval
0 :S t < T :S oo on which the solution exists. If T < oo, it will be important
for us to understand what goes wrong. The goal of this section is to prove
the following result.