Isometric immersions of RCD$(K,N)$ spaces via heat kernels

Abstract

Given an RCD$(K,N)$ space $({X},\mathsf{d},\mathfrak{m})$, one can use its heat kernel $\rho$ to map it into the $L^2$ space by a locally Lipschitz map $\Phi_t(x):=\rho(x,\cdot,t)$. The space $(X,\mathsf{d},\mathfrak{m})$ is said to be an isometrically heat kernel immersing space, if each $\Phi_t$ is an isometric immersion {}{after a normalization}. A main result states that any compact isometrically heat kernel immersing RCD$(K,N)$ space is isometric to an unweighted closed smooth Riemannian manifold. This is justified by a more general result: if a compact non-collapsed RCD$(K, N)$ space has an isometrically immersing eigenmap, then the space is isometric to an unweighted closed Riemannian manifold, which greatly improves a regularity result in \cite{H21} by Honda. As an application of these results, we give a $C^\infty$-compactness theorem for a certain class of Riemannian manifolds with a curvature-dimension-diameter bound and an isometrically immersing eigenmap.