arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Anton Thalmaier.
In this article, new curvature conditions are introduced to establish functional inequalities including gradient estimates, Harnack inequalities and transportation-cost inequalities on manifolds with non-convex boundary.
We prove a completely new integral criterion for the existence and completeness of the wave operators $W_{\pm}(-Δ_h,-Δ_g, I_{g,h})$ corresponding to the (unique self-adjoint realizations of) the Laplace-Beltrami operators $-Δ_j$, $j=1,2$, that are induced by two quasi-isometric complete Riemannian metrics $g$ and $h$ on an open manifold $M$. In particular, this result provides a criterion for the absolutely continuous spectra of $-Δ_g$ and $-Δ_h$ to coincide. Our proof relies on estimates that are obtained using a probabilistic Bismut type formula for the gradient of a heat semigroup. Unlike all previous results, our integral criterion only requires some lower control on the Ricci curvatures and some upper control on the heat kernels, but no control at all on the injectivity radii. As a consequence, we obtain a stability result for the absolutely continuous spectrum under a Ricci flow.
An evolving Riemannian manifold $(M,g_t)_{t\in I}$ consists of a smooth $d$-dimensional manifold $M$, equipped with a geometric flow $g_t$ of complete Riemannian metrics, parametrized by $I=(-\infty,T)$. Given an additional $C^{1,1}$ family of vector fields $(Z_t)_{t\in I}$ on $M$. We study the family of operators $L_t=Δ_t +Z_t $ where $Δ_t$ denotes the Laplacian with respect to the metric $g_t$. We first give sufficient conditions, in terms of space-time Lyapunov functions, for non-explosion of the diffusion generated by $L_t$, and for existence of evolution systems of probability measures associated to it. Coupling methods are used to establish uniqueness of the evolution systems under suitable curvature conditions. Adopting such a unique system of probability measures as reference measures, we characterize supercontractivity, hypercontractivity and ultraboundedness of the corresponding time-inhomogeneous semigroup. To this end, gradient estimates and a family of (super-)logarithmic Sobolev inequalities are established.
Given a second order partial differential operator $L$ satisfying the strong Hörmander condition with corresponding heat semigroup $P_t$, we give two different stochastic representations of $dP_t f$ for a bounded smooth function $f$. We show that the first identity can be used to prove infinite lifetime of a diffusion of $\frac{1}{2} L$, while the second one is used to find an explicit pointwise bound for the horizontal gradient on a Carnot group. In both cases, the underlying idea is to consider the interplay between sub-Riemannian geometry and connections compatible with this geometry.
In this article, functional inequalities for diffusion semigroups on Riemannian manifolds (possibly with boundary) are established, which are equivalent to pinched Ricci curvature, along with gradient estimates, $L^p$-inequalities and log-Sobolev inequalities. These results are further extended to differential manifolds carrying geometric flows. As application, it is shown that they can be used in particular to characterize general geometric flow and Ricci flow by functional inequalities.
In this article, we continue the discussion of Fang-Wu (2015) to estimate the spectral gap of the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck operator on path space over a Riemannian manifold of pinched Ricci curvature. Along with explicit estimates we study the short-time asymptotics of the spectral gap. The results are then extended to the path space of Riemannian manifolds evolving under a geometric flow. Our paper is strongly motivated by Naber's recent work (2015) on characterizing bounded Ricci curvature through stochastic analysis on path space.
Using the curvature-dimension inequality proved in Part~I, we look at consequences of this inequality in terms of the interaction between the sub-Riemannian geometry and the heat semigroup $P_t$ corresponding to the sub-Laplacian. We give bounds for the gradient, entropy, a Poincaré inequality and a Li-Yau type inequality. These results require that the gradient of $P_t f$ remains uniformly bounded whenever the gradient of $f$ is bounded and we give several sufficient conditions for this to hold.
We give a generalized curvature-dimension inequality connecting the geometry of sub-Riemannian manifolds with the properties of its sub-Laplacian. This inequality is valid on a large class of sub-Riemannian manifolds obtained from Riemannian foliations. We give a geometric interpretation of the invariants involved in the inequality. Using this inequality, we obtain a lower bound for the eigenvalues of the sub-Laplacian. This inequality also lays the foundation for proving several powerful results in Part~II.
In this note we determine the first two derivatives of the classical Boltzmann-Shannon entropy of the conjugate heat equation on general evolving manifolds. Based on the second derivative of the Boltzmann-Shannon entropy, we construct Perelman's F and W entropy in abstract geometric flows. Monotonicity of the entropies holds when a technical condition is satisfied. This condition is satisfied on static Riemannian manifolds with nonnegative Ricci curvature, for Hamilton's Ricci flow, List's extended Ricci flow, Müller's Ricci flow coupled with harmonic map flow and Lorentzian mean curvature flow when the ambient space has nonnegative sectional curvature. Under the extra assumption that the lowest eigenvalue is differentiable along time, we derive an explicit formula for the evolution of the lowest eigenvalue of the Laplace-Beltrami operator with potential in the abstract setting.
We first prove stochastic representation formulae for space-time harmonic mappings defined on manifolds with evolving Riemannian metric. We then apply these formulae to derive Liouville type theorems under appropriate curvature conditions. Space-time harmonic mappings which are defined globally in time correspond to ancient solutions to the harmonic map heat flow. As corollaries, we establish triviality of such ancient solutions in a variety of different situations.
We define martingales on manifolds with time-dependent connection, extending in this way the theory of stochastic processes on manifolds with time-changing geometry initiated by Arnaudon, Coulibaly and Thalmaier (2008). We show that some, but not all properties of martingales on manifolds with a fixed connection extend to this more general setting.
We introduce a new entropy functional for nonnegative solutions of the heat equation on a manifold with time-dependent Riemannian metric. Under certain integral assumptions, we show that this entropy is non-decreasing, and moreover convex if the metric evolves under super Ricci flow (which includes Ricci flow and fixed metrics with nonnegative Ricci curvature). As applications, we classify nonnegative ancient solutions to the heat equation according to their entropies. In particular, we show that a nonnegative ancient solution whose entropy grows sublinearly on a manifold evolving under super Ricci flow must be constant. The assumption is sharp in the sense that there do exist nonconstant positive eternal solutions whose entropies grow exactly linearly in time. Some other results are also obtained.
By using a coupling method, an explicit log-Harnack inequality with local geometry quantities is established for (sub-Markovian) diffusion semigroups on a Riemannian manifold (possibly with boundary). This inequality as well as the consequent $L^2$-gradient inequality, are proved to be equivalent to the pointwise curvature lower bound condition together with the convexity or absence of the boundary. Some applications of the log-Harnack inequality are also introduced.
Basic derivative formulas are presented for hypoelliptic heat semigroups and harmonic functions extending earlier work in the elliptic case. Emphasis is placed on developing integration by parts formulas at the level of local martingales. Combined with the optional sampling theorem, this turns out to be an efficient way of dealing with boundary conditions, as well as with finite lifetime of the underlying diffusion. Our formulas require hypoellipticity of the diffusion in the sense of Malliavin calculus (integrability of the inverse Malliavin covariance) and are formulated in terms of the derivative flow, the Malliavin covariance and its inverse. Finally some extensions to the nonlinear setting of harmonic mappings are discussed.
We define horizontal diffusion in $C^1$ path space over a Riemannian manifold and prove its existence. If the metric on the manifold is developing under the forward Ricci flow, horizontal diffusion along Brownian motion turns out to be length preserving. As application, we prove contraction properties in the Monge-Kantorovich minimization problem for probability measures evolving along the heat flow. For constant rank diffusions, differentiating a family of coupled diffusions gives a derivative process with a covariant derivative of finite variation. This construction provides an alternative method to filtering out redundant noise.
In this paper we use methods from Stochastic Analysis to establish Li-Yau type estimates for positive solutions of the heat equation. In particular, we want to emphasize that Stochastic Analysis provides natural tools to derive local estimates in the sense that the gradient bound at given point depends only on universal constants and the geometry of the Riemannian manifold locally about this point.
The Liouville property of a complete Riemannian manifold (i.e., the question whether there exist non-trivial bounded harmonic functions) attracted a lot of attention. For Cartan-Hadamard manifolds the role of lower curvature bounds is still an open problem. We discuss examples of Cartan-Hadamard manifolds of unbounded curvature where the limiting angle of Brownian motion degenerates to a single point on the sphere at infinity, but where nevertheless the space of bounded harmonic functions is as rich as in the non-degenerate case. To see the full boundary the point at infinity has to be blown up in a non-trivial way. Such examples indicate that the situation concerning the famous conjecture of Greene and Wu about existence of non-trivial bounded harmonic functions on Cartan-Hadamard manifolds is much more complicated than one might have expected.
A new type of gradient estimate is established for diffusion semigroups on non-compact complete Riemannian manifolds. As applications, a global Harnack inequality with power and a heat kernel estimate are derived for diffusion semigroups on arbitrary complete Riemannian manifolds.