Splitting maps in Type I Ricci flows

Abstract

We study the existence and small scale behaviour of almost splitting maps along a Ricci flow satisfying Type I curvature bounds. These are special solutions of the heat equation that serve as parabolic analogues of harmonic almost splitting maps, which have proven to be an indespensable tool in the study of the structure of the singular set of non-collapsed Ricci limit spaces. In this paper, motivated by the recent work of Cheeger-Jiang-Naber in the Ricci limit setting, we construct sharp splitting maps on Ricci flows that are almost selfsimilar, and then investigate their small scale behaviour. We show that, modulo linear transformations, an almost splitting map at a large scale remains a splitting map even at smaller scales, provided that the Ricci flow remains sufficiently self-similar. Allowing these linear transformations means that a priori an almost splitting map might degenerate at small scales. However, we show that under an additional summability hypothesis such degeneration doesn't occur.