Li-Yau inequality for unbounded Laplacian on graphs (Q2335477)

The authors prove a Li-Yau inequality for the unbounded Laplacian on a complete weighted graph. They consider an infinite graph \(G=(V,E)\) where \(V\) is the set of vertices and \(E\) that of edges. For a given measure on vertices defined as a function \(m:V\rightarrow \mathbb{R}^{+}\) and a weight on edges defined as a function \(\omega :E\rightarrow \mathbb{R}^{+}\) which is symmetric \(\omega _{xy}=\omega _{yx}\) for every edge \(\{x,y\}\), the authors define the space \(l_{m}^{p}\) of functions on \(V\) which are \(p\)-summable on \(V\) and the Dirichlet form \(Q\) with respect to \(l_{m}^{p}\) defined on \(D(Q)\times D(Q)\) as \(Q(f,g)=\frac{1}{2}\sum_{x,y\in V}\omega _{xy}(f(y)-f(x))(g(y)-g(x))\), where \(D(Q)\) is the completion of the space \( C_{0}(V)\) of finitely supported functions on \(V\) with respect to the \(Q\) -norm \(\left\Vert f\right\Vert _{Q}=\sqrt{\left\Vert f\right\Vert _{l_{m}^{2}}^{2}+\frac{1}{2}\sum_{x,y\in V}\omega _{xy}(f(y)-f(x))^{2}}\). They introduce the infinitesimal generator \(L\) of this Dirichlet form and the associated semigroup \(P_{t}f=e^{-tL}f\). In the case of a locally finite graph, the generator \(L\) coincides with the Laplacian \(\Delta \) defined on its domain \(D(L)=\{f\in l_{m}^{2}\mid Lf\in l_{m}^{2}\}\) through \(\Delta f(x)=\frac{1}{m(x)}\sum_{y\sim x}\omega _{xy}(f(y)-f(x))\), where \(y\sim x\) means that the vertices \(y\) and \(x\) are connected through an edge \(\{x,y\}\). The authors then introduce the gradient form \(\Gamma \), the iterated gradient form \(\Gamma _{2}\) and its modified version as \(\Gamma (f,g)(x)= \frac{1}{2m(x)}\sum_{y\sim x}\omega _{xy}(f(y)-f(x))(g(y)-g(x))(g(y)-g(x))\), \(\Gamma _{2}(f,g)(x)=(\Delta \Gamma (f,g)-\Gamma (f,\Delta g)-\Gamma (g,\Delta f)))(x)\) and \(\widetilde{\Gamma }_{2}(f)=\frac{1}{2}\Delta \Gamma (f)-\Gamma (f,\frac{\Delta (f^{2})}{2f})\), respectively. They say that a graph satisfies the \(CDE^{\prime }(n,k)\) condition if for any positive function \(f\in V^{\mathbb{R}}\), the set of real-valued functions on \(V\), \( \widetilde{\Gamma }_{2}(f)(x)\geq \frac{1}{n}f(x)^{2}(\Delta \log f)(x)^{2}+K\Gamma (f)(x)\) for every \(x\in V\). The first main result of the paper is a Li-Yau inequality. The authors assume that \(G=(V,E,m,\omega )\) is a complete graph with non-degenerate measure \(m\). They suppose that \(G\) satisfies \(CDE^{\prime }(n,K)\) for a real \(K\). They prove an upper bound for \(\frac{\Gamma (\sqrt{P_{t}f})}{P_{t}f}\) for every nonnegative \(f\in l_{m}^{p} \) with \(p\in \lbrack 1,\infty ]\) and \(b\geq 1\), in terms of \(\frac{\Delta P_{t}f}{P_{t}f}\) and \(t\). They then deduce the Harnack inequality \( P_{t}f(x)\leq P_{s}f(z)(\frac{s}{t})^{n}\exp (\frac{4m_{\max }d(x,z)^{2}}{ \omega _{\min }(s-t)})\) for every \(x,z\in V\), \(t<s\) and nonnegative \(f\in l_{m}^{p}\) with \(p\in \lbrack 1,\infty ]\). Here \(d(x,z)\) is the graph distance, \(m_{\max }=\sup_{x\in V}m(x)\) and \(\omega _{\min }=\inf_{x,y\in V,x\sim y}\omega _{xy}\). The authors then prove that \(P_{t}(\frac{\delta _{y} }{m(y)})(x)\leq \frac{C}{V(x,\sqrt{t})}\) for a constant \(C\) depending on \(n\). Under further assumptions of the graph \(G\), the authors finally prove an estimate on the greatest lower bound for the \(l^{2}\)-spectrum of the graph Laplacian (Cheng's eigenvalue): \(\lambda ^{\ast }\leq \frac{Kn}{2}\). For the proof of the Li-Yau inequality, the authors introduce the function \(\Phi (s)=-2\sum_{x\in V}\Gamma (\sqrt{P_{t-s}f+\epsilon })P_{s}\xi (x)m(x)\) for \( f,\xi \in C_{0}(V)\), \(\epsilon >0\) and \(s\in \lbrack 0,t]\). They prove that this function is differentiable in \(s\in (0,t)\) and they compute its derivative. They also prove a Green formula in the present context and properties of the semigroup \(P_{t}\), of the gradient form \(\Gamma \) and of the Laplacian. The proofs of the applications are obtained through direct computations.