In differential geometry, the Ricci curvature tensor, named after Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro, is a geometric object which is determined by a choice of Riemannian or pseudo-Riemannian metric on a manifold. It can be considered, broadly, as a measure of the degree to which the geometry of a given metric tensor differs locally from that of ordinary Euclidean space or pseudo-Euclidean space.
The Ricci tensor can be characterized by measurement of how a shape is deformed as one moves along geodesics in the space. In general relativity, which involves the pseudo-Riemannian setting, this is reflected by the presence of the Ricci tensor in the Raychaudhuri equation. Partly for this reason, the Einstein field equations propose that spacetime can be described by a pseudo-Riemannian metric, with a strikingly simple relationship between the Ricci tensor and the matter content of the universe.
Like the metric tensor, the Ricci tensor assigns to each tangent space of the manifold a symmetric bilinear form (Besse 1987, p. 43). Broadly, one could analogize the role of the Ricci curvature in Riemannian geometry to that of the Laplacian in the analysis of functions; in this analogy, the Riemann curvature tensor, of which the Ricci curvature is a natural by-product, would correspond to the full matrix of second derivatives of a function. However, there are other ways to draw the same analogy.
In three-dimensional topology, the Ricci tensor contains all of the information which in higher dimensions is encoded by the more complicated Riemann curvature tensor. In part, this simplicity allows for the application of many geometric and analytic tools, which led to the solution of the Poincaré conjecture through the work of Richard S. Hamilton and Grigory Perelman.
In differential geometry, lower bounds on the Ricci tensor on a Riemannian manifold allow one to extract global geometric and topological information by comparison (cf. comparison theorem) with the geometry of a constant curvature space form. This is since lower bounds on the Ricci tensor can be successfully used in studying the length functional in Riemannian geometry, as first shown in 1941 via Myers's theorem.
One common source of the Ricci tensor is that it arises whenever one commutes the covariant derivative with the tensor Laplacian. This, for instance, explains its presence in the Bochner formula, which is used ubiquitously in Riemannian geometry. For example, this formula explains why the gradient estimates due to Shing-Tung Yau (and their developments such as the Cheng-Yau and Li-Yau inequalities) nearly always depend on a lower bound for the Ricci curvature.
In 2007, John Lott, Karl-Theodor Sturm, and Cedric Villani demonstrated decisively that lower bounds on Ricci curvature can be understood entirely in terms of the metric space structure of a Riemannian manifold, together with its volume form. This established a deep link between Ricci curvature and Wasserstein geometry and optimal transport, which is presently the subject of much research.