On the equivalence of heat kernel estimates and logarithmic Sobolev inequalities for the Hodge Laplacian (Q863931)

Logarithmic Sobolev inequalities are equivalent to the hypercontractivity of the heat operator on \({\mathbb R}^n\) with the Gauss measure, as first proved by \textit{L. Gross} in [Am. J. Math. 97 (1975), 1061--1083 (1976; Zbl 0318.46049)]. Since then, such equivalences have been proved for larger classes of operators and spaces, and in particular for the Bochner Laplacian on \(k\)-forms over manifolds with a probability measure. The equivalence of logarithmic Sobolev inequalities to the ultracontractivity of the heat kernel of an operator is usually harder to prove. In [Heat kernels and spectral theory, Cambridge Tracts in Mathematics, 92. Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press (1989; Zbl 0699.35006)] \textit{E. B. Davies} proved this equivalence for the Dirichlet Laplacian in \({\mathbb R}^n\). In this paper, the author's main result is the extension of these equivalences (ultracontractive case) to the case of the Hodge Laplacian acting on \(k\)-forms. The author finds sufficient conditions by which the existence of a family of logarithmic Sobolev inequalities for the Hodge Laplacian yields an ultracontractivity bound for the associated heat operator and vice-versa. The key step in the proof is expressing the Hodge Laplacian through the Bochner Weitzenböck formula, so that one can split the operator into two parts: the first one is selfadjoint with a contractive heat kernel (namely, the Bochner Laplacian), and the second one is the Weitzenböck tensor which is treated as a potential term that can be bounded from below.