On the K\"ahler-Ricci flow near a K\"ahler-Einstein metric

On a Fano manifold, we prove that the Kahler-Ricci flow starting from a Kahler metric in the anti-canonical class which is sufficiently close to a Kahler-Einstein metric must converge in a polynomial rate to a Kahler-Einstein metric. The convergence can not happen in general if we study the flow on the level of Kahler potentials. Instead we exploit the interpretation of the Ricci flow as the gradient flow of Perelman's \mu functional. This involves modifying the Ricci flow by a canonical family of gauges. In particular, the complex structure of the limit could be different in general. The main technical ingredient is a Lojasiewicz type inequality for Perelman's \mu functional near a critical point.