Ricci flow on Courant algebroids

We develop a theory of Ricci flow for metrics on Courant algebroids which unifies and extends the analytic theory of various geometric flows, yielding a general tool for constructing solutions to supergravity equations. We prove short-time existence and uniqueness of solutions on compact manifolds, in turn showing that the Courant isometry group is preserved by the flow. We show a scalar curvature monotonicity formula and prove that generalized Ricci flow is a gradient flow, extending fundamental works of Hamilton and Perelman. Using these we show a convergence result for certain nonsingular solutions to generalized Ricci flow.