Metric and spectral triples for Dirichlet and resistance forms (Q2354786)

A regular symmetric Dirichlet form on a locally compact space allows the localization of energy by means of energy measures. These energy measures may or may not be energy dominant; i.e., the energy measure of every function be absolutely continuous with respect to the given measure. On the other hand, it is possible to find energy dominant measures. In fact, if the Dirichlet form is strongly local, then for every energy dominant measure there is intrinsic distance generalizing the classical one. A typical question is whether a locally compact space equipped with the intrinsic metric coming from a Dirichlet form is geodesic. The paper under review deals with intrinsic metrics induced by regular Dirichlet and resistance forms. It is shown that if a local resistance form is given and the space is compact with respect to the resistance metric, then the intrinsic metric yields a geodesic space. Given a regular Dirichlet form, the paper considers Dirac operators within the framework of differential one forms and study its spectral properties. A hypothesis on the intrinsic metric is to require that the metric induces the original topology on the space. For the coincidence of these topologies, the paper under review quotes a version of the criterion in the language of Dirichlet forms. It is seen that if the Dirichlet form admits a carré operator and the generator has discrete spectrum, then a spectral triple can be constructed so that in the compact and strongly local case the associated Connes distance coincides with the intrinsic metric. As an example the paper considers the Sierpinski gasket equipped with the resistance metric. The authors construct the Kusuoka measure which is energy dominant, although the self-similar normalized Hausdorff measure is not. The paper obtains spectral triples associated with regular resistance forms on finitely ramified fractals equipped with the Kusuoka measure. It is also seen that the intrinsic metric of a strongly local Dirichlet form with respect to an energy dominant measure can be expressed in terms of vector fields.