Curvature-dimension inequalities on sub-Riemannian manifolds obtained from Riemannian foliations. I (Q907921)

If \(L\) is a smooth elliptic operator on a connected manifold \(M\), then a unique Riemannian metric \(g\) exists on \(M\) such that for any \(u, v \in C^\infty(M)\), \(\Gamma(u, v) = L(uv) - uLv - vLu = 2(\nabla u, \nabla v)_g\), and, conversely, for a Riemannian metric \(g\), the Laplacian \(\Delta_g\) satisfies this equality. Let \(\Gamma_2(u, v) = \frac{1}{2}(L\Gamma(u, v) - \Gamma(u, Lv) - \Gamma(Lv, u))\). Then the \textit{curvature-dimension inequality for Riemannian manifolds} says that \(\Gamma_2(u, u) \geq \frac{1}{n} (Lu)^2 + \rho\Gamma(u, u)\), where \(L = \Delta_g\), \(n = \dim M\), and \(\rho\) is a lower bound for the Ricci curvature [\textit{D. Bakry} and \textit{M. Émery}, Lect. Notes Math. 1123, 177--206 (1985; Zbl 0561.60080)]. Now let \(M\) be a sub-Riemannian manifold given by a metric \(h\) on a completely non-integrable distribution \(\mathcal{H}\), and consider a differential operator \(L = \sum_{i = 1}^{\dim \mathcal{H}} A_i^2 +\) first-order terms, where \(A_i\) are orthogonal vector fields which span \(\mathcal{H}\). The goal of the paper is to show that, for a large class of sub-Riemannian manifolds obtained from Riemannian foliations, an inequality, which generalizes the curvature-dimension inequality, holds true. The authors give a geometric interpretation of invariants involved in this inequality, and obtain a lower bound for the eigenvalues of the sub-Laplacian.