A concentration-collapse decomposition for $L^2$ flow singularities

Abstract

We exhibit a concentration-collapse decomposition of singularities of fourth order curvature flows, including the $L^2$ curvature flow and Calabi flow, in dimensions $n \leq 4$. The proof requires the development of several new a priori estimates. First, we develop a smoothing result for initial metrics with small energy and a volume growth lower bound, in the vein of Perelman's pseudolocality result. Next, we generalize our technique from prior work to exhibit local smoothing estimates for the $L^2$ flow in the presence of a curvature-related bound. A final key ingredient is a new local $\epsilon$-regularity result for $L^2$-critical metrics with possibly nonconstant scalar curvature. Applications of these results include new compactness and diffeomorphism-finiteness theorems for smooth compact four-manifolds satisfying the necessary and effectively minimal hypotheses of $L^2$ curvature pinching and a volume noncollapsing condition.