Sharp spectral gap and Li-Yau's estimate on Alexandrov spaces (Q1944811)

In the present paper the authors continue previous work of two of them on the Ricci curvature on Alexandrov spaces [\textit{H.-C. Zhang} and \textit{X.-P. Zhu}, Commun. Anal. Geom. 18, No. 3, 503--554 (2010; Zbl 1230.53064); Acta Math. Sci., Ser. B, Engl. Ed. 30, No. 6, 1949--1974 (2010; Zbl 1240.53073)] and in particular on the generalized Bochner-type formula for Alexandrov spaces they established in [J. Differ. Geom. 91, No. 3, 445--522 (2012; Zbl 1258.53075)], to obtain further important results regarding the geometry of Alexandrov spaces. More precisely, they first prove in Theorem 1.2 an extension of a previous result due to \textit{M. Chen} and \textit{F. Wang} [Sci. China, Ser. A 40, No. 4, 384--394 (1997; Zbl 0895.58056)] and independently to \textit{D. Bakry} and \textit{Z. Qian} [Adv. Math. 155, No. 1, 98--153 (2000; Zbl 0980.58020)] by showing that if \(M\) is a compact \(n\)-dimensional Alexandrov space without boundary satisfying \(\mathrm{Ric}(M) \geq(n-1)K\), then its first non-zero eigenvalue satisfies the following inequality: \(\lambda_1(M) \geq \lambda_1(K,n,d)\), where \(d\) is the diameter of \(M\) and \(\lambda_1(K,n,d)\) denotes the first non-zero Neumann eigenvalue of a certain one-dimensional model. By combining the results above with the maximal diameter theorem, the authors also obtain in Corollary 1.3 an Obata-type theorem [\textit{M. Obata}, J. Math. Soc. Japan 14, 333--340 (1962; Zbl 0115.39302)], i.e. they prove that if \(M\) is as above and if, in addition, \(\lambda_1(M) = n\), then \(M\) is isometric to the spherical suspension over an \((n-1)\)-dimensional Alexandrov space of curvature \(\geq 1\). Explicit lower bound estimates are also obtained. To prove the results above, the authors find in Section 3 gradient estimates for the first eigenfunction and, moreover, they establish a comparison result for the maximum of the eigenfunctions. The second main result of the paper is Theorem 1.4 that extends Li and Yau's parabolic estimates from the context of smooth Riemannian manifolds to that of Alexandrov spaces. This result is augmented in Corollary 5.1 by a sharper Harnack estimate of positive solutions of heat equations.