Unique asymptotics of $SO(k)\times SO(n-k+1)$ symmetric ancient ovals of Ricci flow

Abstract

We obtain the unique asymptotics of $SO(k)\times SO(n-k+1)$ invariant, compact, {non-self-similar} $κ$-solutions to the Ricci flow $(M^n, g(t))$, where $n\geq 4$ and $2\leq k\leq n-2$. More precisely, these ancient solutions are ancient ovals of the Ricci flow that are diffeomorphic to the standard sphere $S^n$, having a positive curvature operator metric $g(t)$ and a cylindrical tangent flow at $-\infty$. The metric $g(t)$ is represented in the form $g(t)=dz\otimes dz + F^2(z,t) g_{S^{k-1}} + G^2(z,t)g_{S^{n-k}}$ (up to flipping $k-1$ and $n-k$). We obtain results about the blowdown limits of our solution, establish the unique sharp asymptotics of the profile function $G(z, t)$, and prove that the uniqueness of $G(z, t)$ implies the uniqueness of $F(z, t)$. In particular, this provides the first instance of a classification result for geometric flows represented by a coupled PDE system, opening new avenues for studying the classification of higher-dimensional $κ$-solutions of the Ricci flow.