Uniform, localized asymptotics for sub-Riemannian heat kernels, their logarithmic derivatives, and associated diffusion bridges
Robert W. Neel, Ludovic Sacchelli
备注：
68 pages, 3 figures. The paper has been substantially re-written in order to take advantage of localization conditions from recent literature, thus allowing the results to be proven even on incomplete manifolds, and also to improve the exposition throughout
We show that the small-time asymptotics of the sub-Riemannian heat kernel, its derivatives, and its logarithmic derivatives can be localized, allowing them to be studied even on incomplete manifolds, under essentially optimal conditions on the distance to infinity. Continuing, away from abnormal minimizers, we show that the asymptotics are closely connected to the structure of the minimizing geodesics between the two relevant points (which is non-trivial on the cut locus). This gives uniform heat kernel bounds on compacts, and also allows a complete expansion of the heat kernel, and its derivatives, in a wide variety of cases.
The method extends naturally to logarithmic derivatives of the heat kernel, where we again get uniform bounds on compacts and a more precise expansion for any particular pair of points, in most cases. In particular, we determine the measure giving the law of large numbers for the corresponding diffusion bridge, and the leading terms of the logarithmic derivatives are given by the cumulants of geometrically natural random variables with respect to this measure. One consequence is that the non-abnormal cut locus is characterized by the behavior of the log-Hessian of the heat kernel.
We consider small-time asymptotics for diffusion processes conditioned by their initial and final positions, under the assumption that the diffusivity has a sub-Riemannian structure, not necessarily of constant rank. We show that, if the endpoints are joined by a unique path of minimal energy, and lie outside the sub-Riemannian cut locus, then the fluctuations of the conditioned diffusion from the minimal energy path, suitably rescaled, converge to a Gaussian limit. The Gaussian limit is characterized in terms of the bicharacteristic flow, and also in terms of a second variation of the energy …
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Bounds on the logarithmic derivatives of the heat kernel on a compact Riemannian manifolds have been long known, and were recently extended, for the log-gradient and log-Hessian, to general complete Riemannian manifolds. Here, we further extend these bounds to incomplete Riemannan manifolds under the least restrictive condition on the distance to infinity available, for derivatives of all orders. Moreover, we consider not only the usual heat kernel associated to the Laplace-Beltrami operator, but we also allow the addition of a conservative vector field. We show that these bounds are sharp in …
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In this note, we derive a new logarithmic Sobolev inequality for the heat kernel on the Heisenberg group. The proof is inspired from the historical method of Leonard Gross with the Central Limit Theorem for a random walk. Here the non commutative nature of the increments produces a new gradient which naturally involves a Brownian bridge on the Heisenberg group. This new inequality contains the optimal logarithmic Sobolev inequality for the Gaussian distribution in two dimensions. We compare this new inequality with the sub-elliptic logarithmic Sobolev inequality of Hong-Quan Li and with the mo…
In this paper, we prove the existence of martingale solutions to the stochastic heat equation taking values in a Riemannian manifold, which admits Wiener (Brownian bridge) measure on the Riemannian path (loop) space as an invariant measure using a suitable Dirichlet form. Using the Andersson-Driver approximation, we heuristically derive a form of the equation solved by the process given by the Dirichlet form. Moreover, we establish the log-Sobolev inequality for the Dirichlet form in the path space. In addition, some characterizations for the lower bounds of the Ricci curvature are presented r…
We study the rate of concentration of a Brownian bridge in time one around the corresponding geodesical segment on a Cartan-Hadamard manifold with pinched negative sectional curvature, when the distance between the two extremities tends to infinity. This improves on previous results by A. Eberle, and one of us. Along the way, we derive a new asymptotic estimate for the logarithmic derivative of the heat kernel on such manifolds, in bounded time and with one space parameter tending to infinity, which can be viewed as a counterpart to Bismut's asymptotic formula in small time.
The infinite Brownian loop on a Riemannian manifold is the limit in distribution of the Brownian bridge of length $T$ around a fixed origin when $T \rightarrow +\infty$. The aim of this note is to study its long-time asymptotics on Riemannian symmetric spaces $G/K$ of noncompact type and of general rank. This amounts to the behavior of solutions to the heat equation subject to the Doob transform induced by the ground spherical function. Unlike the standard Brownian motion, we observe in this case phenomena which are similar to the Euclidean setting, namely $L^1$ asymptotic convergence without …
We approximate the heat kernel $h(x,y,t)$ on a compact connected Riemannian manifold $M$ without boundary uniformly in $(x,y,t)\in M\times M\times [a,b]$, $a>0$, by $n$-fold integrals over $M^n$ of the densities of Brownian bridges. Moreover, we provide an estimate for the uniform convergence rate. As an immediate corollary, we get a uniform approximation of solutions of the Cauchy problem for the heat equation on $M$.
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Aim of this short note is to show that a dimension-free Harnack inequality on an infinitesimally Hilbertian metric measure space where the heat semigroup admits an integral representation in terms of a kernel is suffcient to deduce a sharp upper Gaussian estimate for such kernel. As intermediate step, we prove the local logarithmic Sobolev inequality (known to be equivalent to a lower bound on the Ricci curvature tensor in smooth Riemannian manifolds). Both results are new also in the more regular framework of $RCD(K,\infty)$ spaces.
