Geometry and analysis of Dirichlet forms (Q715217)

The interesting paper under review studies analytic and geometric properties of the Dirichlet forms. Precisely, let \(X\) be a locally compact, connected and separable Hausdorff space and \(m\) be a nonnegative Radon measure with support \(X.\) Consider a regular, strongly local Dirichlet form \(\mathcal E\) on \(L^{2}(X,m)\) and set \(d\) for the associated intrinsic distance. Assume that the topology induced by \(d\) coincides with the original topology on \(X\) and that \(X\) is compact, satisfies a doubling property and supports a weak \((1,2)\)-Poincaré inequality. The authors discuss the coincidence/non-coincidence of the intrinsic length structure and the gradient structure. Under the further assumption that the Ricci curvature of \(X\) is bounded from below in the sense of Lott-Sturm-Villani, the following assertions are shown to be equivalent: (i) the heat flow of \(\mathcal E\) gives the unique gradient flow of \(\mathcal U_{\infty },\) (ii) \(\mathcal E\) satisfies the Newtonian property, (iii) the intrinsic length structure coincides with the gradient structure. Moreover, for the standard (resistance) Dirichlet form on the Sierpinski gasket equipped with the Kusuoka measure, the authors identify the intrinsic length structure with the measurable Riemannian and the gradient structures. The above results are applied to the (coarse) Ricci curvatures and asymptotics of the gradient of the heat kernel.