For metric measure spaces satisfying the reduced curvature–dimension condition
we prove
a series of sharp functional inequalities under the additional “essentially nonbranching”
assumption. Examples of spaces entering this framework are (weighted) Riemannian
manifolds satisfying lower Ricci curvature bounds and their measured Gromov Hausdorff
limits, Alexandrov spaces satisfying lower curvature bounds and, more generally,
spaces, Finsler manifolds endowed with a strongly convex norm and satisfying lower
Ricci curvature bounds.
In particular we prove the Brunn–Minkowski inequality, the
–spectral gap (or
equivalently the
–Poincaré
inequality) for any
,
the log-Sobolev inequality, the Talagrand inequality and finally the Sobolev
inequality.
All the results are proved in a sharp form involving an upper bound on
the diameter of the space; all our inequalities for essentially nonbranching
spaces take the same form as the corresponding sharp ones known for a
weighted Riemannian manifold satisfying the curvature–dimension condition
in the
sense of Bakry and Émery. In this sense our inequalities are sharp. We
also discuss the rigidity and almost rigidity statements associated to the
–spectral
gap.
In particular, we have also shown that the sharp Brunn–Minkowski inequality in the
global form can be deduced from the
local curvature–dimension condition, providing
a step towards (the long-standing problem of) globalization for the curvature–dimension
condition
.
To conclude, some of the results can be seen as answers to open problems
proposed in Villani’s book
Optimal transport.