On the classification of gradient Ricci solitons

Abstract

We show that the only complete shrinking gradient Ricci solitons with vanishing Weyl tensor are quotients of the standard ones. This gives a new proof of the Hamilton-Ivey-Perel'man classification of 3-dimensional shrinking gradient solitons. We also prove a classification for expanding gradient Ricci solitons with constant scalar curvature and suitably decaying Weyl tensor.