The Ricci flow was introduced by Hamilton in 1982 [H1] in order to prove that a compact three-manifold admitting a Riemannian metric of positive Ricci curvature is a spherical space form. In dimension four Hamilton showed that compact four-manifolds with positive curvature operators are spherical space forms as well [H2]. More generally, the same conclusion holds for compact four-manifolds with 2-positive curvature operators [Che]. Recall that a curvature operator is called 2-positive, if the sum of its two smallest eigenvalues is positive. .
