On complete gradient shrinking Ricci solitons

Abstract

In this paper we derive a precise estimate on the growth of potential functions of complete noncompact shrinking solitons. Based on this, we prove that a complete noncompact gradient shrinking Ricci soliton has at most Euclidean volume growth. The latter result can be viewed as an analog of the well-known theorem of Bishop that a complete noncompact Riemannian manifold with nonnegative Ricci curvature has at most Euclidean volume growth.