On The Differential Structure Of Metric Measure Spaces And Applications

On the Differential Structure of Metric Measure Spaces and Applications

The main goals of this paper are: (i) To develop an abstract differential calculus on metric measure spaces by investigating the duality relations between differentials and gradients of Sobolev functions. This will be achieved without calling into play any sort of analysis in charts, our assumptions being: the metric space is complete and separable and the measure is Radon and non-negative. (ii) To employ these notions of calculus to provide, via integration by parts, a general definition of distributional Laplacian, thus giving a meaning to an expression like Δg=μ, where g is a function and μ is a measure. (iii) To show that on spaces with Ricci curvature bounded from below and dimension bounded from above, the Laplacian of the distance function is always a measure and that this measure has the standard sharp comparison properties. This result requires an additional assumption on the space, which reduces to strict convexity of the norm in the case of smooth Finsler structures and is always satisfied on spaces with linear Laplacian, a situation which is analyzed in detail.

A Differentiable Structure for Metric Measure Spaces

New Trends on Analysis and Geometry in Metric Spaces

This book includes four courses on geometric measure theory, the calculus of variations, partial differential equations, and differential geometry. Authored by leading experts in their fields, the lectures present different approaches to research topics with the common background of a relevant underlying, usually non-Riemannian, geometric structure. In particular, the topics covered concern differentiation and functions of bounded variation in metric spaces, Sobolev spaces, and differential geometry in the so-called Carnot–Carathéodory spaces. The text is based on lectures presented at the 10th School on "Analysis and Geometry in Metric Spaces" held in Levico Terme (TN), Italy, in collaboration with the University of Trento, Fondazione Bruno Kessler and CIME, Italy. The book is addressed to both graduate students and researchers.