Analytic and geometric properties of generic Ricci solitons

The aim of this paper is to prove some classification results for generic shrinking Ricci solitons. In particular, we show that every three dimensional generic shrinking Ricci soliton is given by quotients of either $\mathds{S}^3$, $\erre\times\mathds{S}^2$ or $\erre^3$, under some very weak conditions on the vector field $X$ generating the soliton structure. In doing so we introduce analytical tools that could be useful in other settings; for instance we prove that the Omori-Yau maximum principle holds for the $X$-Laplacian on every generic Ricci soliton, without any assumption on $X$.