Ricci curvature and eigenvalue estimate on locally finite graphs (Q2275699)

The link between Ricci curvature lower bounds, estimates for heat kernels, logarithmic Sobolev inequalities and the spectrum of the Laplacian is nowadays being extended beyond its classical Riemannian context to sub-Riemannian manifolds, graphs, fractals and even to abstract metric measure spaces. In this paper the authors consider a notion of Ricci curvature lower bound involving curvature-dimension inequalities. The main results concern curvature-dimension inequalities on various classes of weighted (possibly infinite) graphs. Let \(G=\big(V,E,\{\mu_{xy}\}_{(x,y) \in E}\big)\) be a weighted graph with edge weights \(\mu_{xy}=\mu_{yx}\geq 0\), \((x,y) \in E\). The weighted degree of a vertex \(x\) is \(d_x = \sum_{y:(x,y) \in E} \mu_{xy}\). For a real-valued function \(f\) on \(V\), the Laplacian is defined to be \[ \Delta f(x) = \frac1{d_x} \sum_{y:(x,y) \in E} \mu_{xy} \big(f(y)-f(x)\big). \] Define bilinear operators \(\Gamma\) (carré du champ) and \(\Gamma_2\) (iterated carré du champ) by \[ \Gamma(f,g)(x) = \frac12 \big(\Delta(fg) - f\Delta g - g\Delta f\big)(x) \] and \[ \Gamma_2(f,g)(x) = \frac12 \big(\Delta \Gamma(f,g) - \Gamma(f,\Delta g) - \Gamma(g,\Delta f)\big)(x). \] The graph \(G\) is said to satisfy the curvature-dimension inequality \(CD(m,K)\) if \[ \Gamma_2(f,f) \geq \frac1m (\Delta f)^2 + K \Gamma(f,f) \] for all real-valued functions \(f\) on \(V\). See, for instance, [\textit{D. Bakry} and \textit{M. Ledoux}, Duke Math. J. 85, No. 1, 253--270 (1996; Zbl 0870.60071)]. Here, \(m\) is a parameter in the range \((1,\infty]\) which represents a type of ``dimension'' for \(G\), while \(K\) is a real parameter representing a curvature lower bound. For instance, on an \(m\)-dimensional Riemannian manifold \(M\) endowed with its Laplace-Beltrami operator \(\Delta\) and the corresponding operators \(\Gamma\) and \(\Gamma_2\), the curvature-dimension inequality \(CD(m,K)\) is equivalent to the condition that the Ricci curvature on \(M\) is bounded below by \(K\). The main results of the paper are the following. First, every locally finite graph \(G\) satisfies the curvature-dimension inequality \(CD(2,-1)\). Suitable uniform bounds on the weighted vertex degrees \(\{d_x:x \in V\}\) ensure the validity of stronger curvature-dimension inequalities \(CD(2,K)\), \(K>-1\); see Theorem 1.2 in the paper for a precise statement. Next, every Ricci flat graph \(G\) (for instance, the Euclidean integer lattice \({\mathbb Z}^n\)) satisfies the curvature-dimension inequality \(CD(\infty,0)\). The paper also includes related estimates on the bottom of the spectrum of the Laplacian in terms of the maximum weighted degree and the diameter of \(G\).