New formulas for the Laplacian of distance functions and applications (Q2657022)

A \((K,N)\)-measure contraction property (the MCP\((K,N)\)-spaces for short) and the \((K,N)\)-curvature-dimension condition (the CD\((K,N)\) for short,\(K\in\mathbb{R}, N\in[n,\infty]\)) have had an important role in several classical problems of the calculus of variations, geometric measure theory and mathematical physics. Several authors studied the geometry of \((K,N)\)-curvature-dimension condition and the \((K,N)\)-curvature-dimension [\textit{K.-T. Sturm}, Acta Math. 196, No. 1, 65--131 (2006; Zbl 1105.53035); ibid. 196, No. 1, 133--177 (2006; Zbl 1106.53032); \textit{G. Wei} and \textit{W. Wylie}, J. Differ. Geom. 83, No. 2, 377--405 (2009; Zbl 1189.53036); \textit{P. W. Y. Lee} et al., Discrete Contin. Dyn. Syst. 36, No. 1, 303--321 (2016; Zbl 1326.53043); \textit{J. Lott} and \textit{C. Villani}, Ann. Math. (2), 169, No. 3, 903--991 (2009; Zbl 1178.53038); \textit{L. Rifford}, Math. Control Relat. Fields 3, No. 4, 467--487 (2013; Zbl 1275.53034); \textit{L. Rizzi}, Calc. Var. Partial Differ. Equ. 55 No. 3, Article ID 60, 20 p. (2016; Zbl 1352.53026); \textit{F. Baudoin} and \textit{N. Garofalo}, J. Eur. Math. Soc. (JEMS), 19, No. 1, 151--219 (2017; Zbl 1359.53018); \textit{D. Barilari} and \textit{L. Rizzi}, Commun. Contemp. Math., 20, 6, Article ID 1750081, 24 p. (2018; Zbl 1398.53038)]. The principal objective in this paper is to prove an exact representation formula for the Laplacian of the distance (and more generally for an arbitrary \(1\)-Lipschitz function) in the framework of metric measure spaces satisfying Ricci curvature lower bounds in a synthetic sense (more precisely in essentially nonbranching MCP\((K,N)\)-spaces). Also the authors have proved the equivalence of CD\((K,N)\) and a dimensional Bochner inequality on signed distance functions. Moreover the authors obtain a measure-theoretic splitting theorem for infinitesimally Hilbertian, essentially nonbranching spaces satisfying MCP\((0,N)\).