Using 3D string-inspired gravity to understand the Thurston conjecture

摘要

We present a string-inspired three-dimensional (3D) Euclidean field theory as the starting point for a modified Ricci flow analysis of the Thurston conjecture. In addition to the metric, the theory contains a dilaton, an antisymmetric tensor field and a Maxwell-Chern-Simons field. For constant dilaton, the theory appears to obey a Birkhoff theorem which allows only nine possible classes of solutions, depending on the signs of the parameters in the action. Eight of these correspond to the eight Thurston geometries, while the ninth describes the metric of a squashed 3-sphere. It therefore appears that one can construct modified Ricci flow equations in which the topology of the geometry is encoded in the parameters of an underlying field theory. [References: 31]