Ricci curvature and convergence of Lipschitz functions

DOI10.4310/CAG.2011.V19.N1.A4MaRDI QIDQ649509zbMATH OpenWikidataFDO

Publication date 1 December 2011

Published in Communications in Analysis and Geometry (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1005.1040

convergence of differentials Lipschitz function pointed metric space Radon measure Ricci curvature Riemannian manifold

Global Riemannian geometry, including pinching (53C20) Methods of global Riemannian geometry, including PDE methods; curvature restrictions (53C21) Differential geometric aspects of harmonic maps (53C43)

Abstract: We give a definition of convergence of differential of Lipschitz functions with respect to measured Gromov-Hausdorff topology. As their applications, we give a characterization of harmonic functions with polynomial growth on asymptotic cones of manifolds with nonnegative Ricci curvature and Euclidean volume growth, and distributional Laplacian comparison theorem on limit spaces of Riemannian manifolds.

Review text

Let \(\langle M,g_{M}\rangle \) be a Riemannian manifold with a fixed point \(m\in M\). Then the pair \((M,m) \) is called a pointed Riemannian manifold, that is, a pointed metric space with the Riemannian metric. The renormalized volume is defined by \(\underline{\text{Vol}}_{M}= \text{Vol}_{g_{M}}/\text{Vol}_{g_{M}}(B_{M}(m,1)) \) where \(B_{M}(m,1) \) is the unit ball in \(M\) centered at the point \(m\). The author considers a pointed (i.e., with the fixed point \(y\in Y\)) proper (i.e., every bounded set in \(Y\) is relatively compact) metric space \(Y\) with Radon \(\,\)measure \(v\) on \(Y\) such that the triple \((Y,y,v) \) is the (Gromov-) Hausdorff limit of a sequence \(\left(\left(M_{j},m_{j}, \underline{\text{Vol}}_{M_{j}}\right) \right) _{j=1}^{\infty }\) of pointed complete Riemannian spaces of \(\dim (M_{j}) =n\geq 2\) and such that \(\text{Ric}_{M_{j}}\geq -(n-1) \) for every \(j\in \mathbb{N}\). The main goal of the paper is to introduce a convergence of differentials of a sequence of Lipschitz functions \(f_{j},j\in\mathbb{N}\), on Riemannian manifolds \(M_{j}\) to the differential \(df_{\infty }\) of the limit function \(f_{\infty }\). The papers by \textit{J. Cheeger} [Geom. Funct. Anal. 9, No. 3, 428--517 (1999; Zbl 0942.58018)] and \textit{J. Cheeger} and \textit{T. H. Colding} [J. Differ. Geom. 54, No. 1, 37--74 (2000; Zbl 1027.53043)] provide a foundation for the author's study. In particular, they prove that the cotangent bundle \(T^{\ast }Y\) of the limit metric space \(Y\) exists. A sequence of differentials \((df_{j}) _{j=1}^{\infty }\) of Lipschitz functions on \(M_{j}\), \(j\in\mathbb{N}\) is said to be convergent to the differential \(df_{\infty }\) (notation: \((f_{j},df_{j}) \to (f_{\infty },df_{\infty }) \)) on the ball \(B_{Y}(y,R) \) if, to every \( \varepsilon >0\), every \(x_{\infty }\in B_{Y}(y,R) \), every \( z_{\infty }\in Y\), every sequence \((x_{j}) _{j=1}^{\infty }\) of points \(x_{j}\in B_{M_{j}}(m_{j},R) \), \(j\in\mathbb{N}\), that converges to \(x_{\infty }\) and every sequence \((z_{j}) _{j=1}^{\infty }\) of points in \(M_{j}\), \(j\in\mathbb{N}\), that converges to \(z_{\infty }\), there corresponds an \(r>0\) such that {\parindent=6mm \begin{itemize}\item[(i)] (Weak convergence of differentials at \(x_{\infty }\)) \[ \begin{multlined}\overline{\lim }_{j\to \infty }\left| \frac{1}{\underline{\text{ Vol}}_{M_{j}}B_{M_{j}}(x_{j},t) }\int_{B_{M_{j}}( x_{j},t) }\left\langle dr_{z_{j}},df_{j}\right\rangle d\underline{ \text{Vol}}_{M_{j}}-\right.\\ \left. -\frac{1}{v(B_{Y}(x_{\infty },t) ) }\int_{B_{Y}(x_{\infty },t) }\left\langle dr_{z_{\infty }},df_{\infty }\right\rangle dv\right| <\varepsilon ;\end{multlined} \] \item[(ii)] (the \(L_{2}\)-energy of \((f_{j}) _{j=1}^{\infty }\) is upper semicontinuous at \(x_{\infty }\)) \[ \begin{multlined}\overline{\lim }_{j\to \infty }\left| \frac{1}{\underline{\text{ Vol}}_{M_{j}}B_{M_{j}}(x_{j},t) }\int_{B_{M_{j}}( x_{j},t) }\left| df_{j}\right| ^{2}d\underline{\text{Vol}} _{M_{j}}\right|\leq \\ \leq \frac{1}{v(B_{Y}(x_{\infty },t) ) }\int_{B_{Y}(x_{\infty },t) }\left| df_{\infty }\right| ^{2}dv+\varepsilon \end{multlined} \] for every \(t\in (0,r) \); here, \(r_{z_{j}}(w) = \text{dist}(z_{j},w) \), and \(r_{z_{\infty }}\) has a similar meaning. \end{itemize}} The author mentions two applications of his notion of convergence of differentials. {\parindent=6mm \begin{itemize}\item[(1)] If \((f_{j},df_{j}) \to (f_{\infty },df_{\infty }) \), \((g_{j},dg_{j}) \to (g_{\infty },dg_{\infty }) \) and the sequence \((F_{j}) _{j=1}^{\infty }\) in \(C(\mathbb{R}) \) converges to \(F_{\infty }\) in the compact uniform topology as \( j\to \infty \), then \[ \int_{B_{M_{j}}(x_{j},R) }F_{j}(\left\langle df_{j},dg_{j}\right\rangle ) d\underline{\text{Vol}} _{M_{j}}\to \int_{B_{Y}(x_{\infty },R) }F_{\infty }(\left\langle df_{\infty },dg_{\infty }\right\rangle ) dv\text{ as } j\to \infty . \] \item[(2)] If \((h_{j}) _{j=1}^{\infty }\) is a sequence of harmonic functions on \(M_{j},j\in\mathbb{N}\) and \(h_{\infty }\) is a Lipschitz function on \(B_{Y}(y,R) \) such that (a) \(\text{Lip}(h_{j}) \), \(j\in\mathbb{N}\), are uniformly bounded, and (b) the sequence \((h_{j}) _{j=1}^{\infty }\) converges to \(h_{\infty }\) on \(B_{Y}(y,R) \), then \((h_{j},dh_{j}) \to (h_{\infty },dh_{\infty }) \) as \(j\to \infty \) on \(B_{Y}(y,R) \). In addition, following \textit{Y. Ding} [Commun. Anal. Geom. 10, No. 3, 475--514 (2002; Zbl 1018.58013)], \(h_{\infty }\) is harmonic on \(B_{Y}(y,R) \). \end{itemize}} Section 2 describes preliminaries: metric measure spaces, Gromov-Hausdorff convergence and properties of limit spaces. In Section 3, the author proves the radial rectifiability (in the sense of measure theory) (Theorem 3.1) which provides the analytic foundation for studying the limit space \((Y,y,v) \) and generalizes it to the rectifiability theorem associated with Lipschitz functions (Theorem 3.4). Also in Section 3, the author derives the explicit formula for the radial derivative of a Lipschitz function from a given point (Theorem 3.3). In Section 4, the notion of strong convergence of \(L^{\infty }\)-functions is introduced and Theorem 4.1 gives conditions sufficient for strong convergence of differentials of Lipschitz functions. Theorem 4.2 states that every Lipschitz function on the limit space \(Y\) can be approximated by a sequence \( (f_{j}) _{j=1}^{\infty }\) of Lipschitz functions on the Riemannian manifolds \(M_{j}\), \(j\in\mathbb{N}\) so that \((f_{j},df_{j}) \to (f_{\infty },df_{\infty }) \) as \(j\to \infty \). Finally, Corollary 4.5 provides several applications of the convergence of differentials.

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