Improved geodesics for the reduced curvature-dimension condition in branching metric spaces (Q379476)

The generalized Ricci curvature for metric measure spaces, also known as the \textit{curvature-dimension} \(\mathrm{CD}(K,N)\), introduced by \textit{J. Lott} and \textit{C. Villani} [Ann. Math. (2) 169, No. 3, 903--991 (2009; Zbl 1178.53038)] and \textit{K.-T. Sturm} [Acta Math. 196, No. 1, 65--131 (2006; Zbl 1105.53035)] makes essential appeal to ``Wasserstein geodesics'', i.e., geodesics in the space \((\mathcal{P},W_2)\), i.e., the probability measures on \(X\), endowed with the Wasserstein \(L^2\) metric. Unfortunately, \(\mathrm{CD}(K,N)\)-spaces do not posses certain natural properties that one would expect from a space satisfying a Ricci curvature bound. Partly, in order to overcome these limitations, \textit{K. Bacher} and \textit{K.-T. Sturm} introduced in [J. Funct. Anal. 259, No. 1, 28--56 (2010; Zbl 1196.53027)] the ``reduced curvature-dimension condition'' \(\mathrm{CD}^*(K,N)\). Indeed, the \(\mathrm{CD}^*(K,N)\)-spaces exhibit such important properties that are not satisfied by \(\mathrm{CD}(K,N)\)-spaces, such as local-to-global and tensorization. In [Bacher and Sturm, loc. cit.] and further developments, the \(\mathrm{CD}^*(K,N)\) condition was introduced and used under the additional assumption that the space is ``non-branching''. Since this is not a stable property under the Gromov-Hausdorff convergence, even combined with curvature-dimension conditions, this restriction represents a somewhat unnatural and overly limiting constraint. In the present paper, the author shows that even in \(\mathrm{CD}^*(K,N)\)-spaces that are branching, there always exist geodesics satisfying the convexity criterion essential for the \(\mathrm{CD}^*(K,N)\) condition, also for intermediate times. Moreover, the measures along these geodesics have an upper bound for their densities. The upper bound above is a function of the bounds for the densities of the end points (in \((\mathcal{P}\)), the lower bound \(K\) for the Ricci curvature, the upper bound \(N\) on the dimension, as well as on the diameter of the union of the supports of end points measures.