- ANCIENT SOLUTIONS 29
FIGURE 1. Shrinking round n-sphere
3.2. The cylinder-to-sphere rule. Before considering our next ex-
ample, it will be helpful to recall the following result from Riemannian ge-
ometry.
LEMMA 2.10. Let 0 < w :::; oo, and let g be a metric on the topological
cylinder (-w, w) x sn of the form
g = <p (z)^2 dz^2 +1/J (z)^2 gcan,
where <p, 1jJ : (-w, w) -+ lR+ and gcan is the canonical round metric of radius
1 on sn. Then g extends to a smooth metric on sn+l if and only if
(2.15) 1-~ <p (() d( < oo,
(2.16) lim 1jJ (z) = 0,
z--+±w
(2.17)
. 1/J' ( z)
z--+±w lim -<p ( -) Z = +1,
and
(2.18)
. d2k1/J
z--+±w lim d S^2 k ( z) =^0
for all k E N, where ds is the element of arc length induced by <p.
PROOF. Since the result is standard, we will only prove sufficiency. The
argument is essentially two-dimensional, so to simplify the notation we shall
assume that n = 1 and
g = <p (z)^2 dz^2 +1jJ (z)^2 dB^2 ,
where e E JR/27rZ. It will suffice to consider the 'north pole' z = w. Let
s (z) ~ foz <p (() d(,
and set s ~ limz--+w s (z) < oo. Let
r(z)~s-s,