Lyapunov conditions for Super Poincaré inequalities

We show how to use Lyapunov functions to obtain functional inequalities which are stronger than Poincaré inequality (for instance logarithmic Sobolev or F-Sobolev). The case of Poincaré and weak Poincaré inequalities was studied in [D. Bakry, P. Cattiaux, A. Guillin, Rate of convergence for ergodic continuous Markov processes: Lyapunov versus Poincaré, J. Funct. Anal. 254 (3) (2008) 727-759. Available on Mathematics arXiv:math.PR/0703355, 2007]. This approach allows us to recover and extend in a unified way some known criteria in the euclidean case (Bakry and Emery, Wang, Kusuoka and Stroock, …).     

On the best constant of weighted Poincaré inequalities

We compute the optimal constant for some weighted Poincaré inequalities obtained by Fausto Ferrari and Enrico Valdinoci in [F. Ferrari, E. Valdinoci, Some weighted Poincaré inequalities, Indiana Univ. Math. J. 58 (4) (2009) 1619-1637].     

From concentration to logarithmic Sobolev and Poincaré inequalities

We give a new proof of the fact that Gaussian concentration implies the logarithmic Sobolev inequality when the curvature is bounded from below, and also that exponential concentration implies Poincaré inequality under null curvature condition. Our proof holds on non-smooth structures, such as length spaces, and provides a universal control of the constants. We also give a new proof of the equivalence between dimension free Gaussian concentration and Talagrand's transport inequality.     

Opial type inequalities for cosine and sine operator functions

Various L _p form Opial type inequalities are given for cosine and sine operator functions with applications.     

Rate of convergence for ergodic continuous Markov processes: Lyapunov versus Poincaré

We study the relationship between two classical approaches for quantitative ergodic properties: the first one based on Lyapunov type controls and popularized by Meyn and Tweedie, the second one based on functional inequalities (of Poincaré type). We show that they can be linked through new inequalities (Lyapunov-Poincaré inequalities). Explicit examples for diffusion processes are studied, improving some results in the literature. The example of the kinetic Fokker-Planck equation recently studied by Hérau and Nier, Helffer and Nier, and Villani is in particular discussed in the final section.     

The shape of extremal functions for Poincaré-Sobolev-type inequalities in a ball

We study extremal functions for a family of Poincaré-Sobolev-type inequalities. These functions minimize, for subcritical or critical p?2, the quotient ‖∇u_‖2/‖up_‖ among all u∈H¹(B)?{0} with B_∫u=0. Here B is the unit ball in RN. We show that the minimizers are axially symmetric with respect to a line passing through the origin. We also show that they are strictly monotone in the direction of this line. In particular, they take their maximum and minimum precisely at two antipodal points on the boundary of B. We also prove that, for p close to 2, minimizers are antisymmetric with respect to the hyperplane through the origin perpendicular to the symmetry axis, and that, once the symmetry axis is fixed, they are unique (up to multiplication by a constant). In space dimension two, we prove that minimizers are not antisymmetric for large p.     

Improved Poincaré inequalities with weights

In this paper we prove that if Ω∈Rn is a bounded John domain, the following weighted Poincaré-type inequality holds:

     

Second order Poincaré inequalities and CLTs on Wiener space

We prove infinite-dimensional second order Poincaré inequalities on Wiener space, thus closing a circle of ideas linking limit theorems for functionals of Gaussian fields, Stein's method and Malliavin calculus. We provide two applications: (i) to a new “second order” characterization of CLTs on a fixed Wiener chaos, and (ii) to linear functionals of Gaussian-subordinated fields.     

Pointwise symmetrization inequalities for Sobolev functions and applications

We develop a technique to obtain new symmetrization inequalities that provide a unified framework to study Sobolev inequalities, concentration inequalities and sharp integrability of solutions of elliptic equations.     

A Poincaré inequality on loop spaces

We show that the Laplacian on the loop space over a class of Riemannian manifolds has a spectral gap. The Laplacian is defined using the Levi-Civita connection, the Brownian bridge measure and the standard Bismut tangent spaces.     

Poincaré type theorems for non-autonomous systems

In this paper we establish analytic equivalence theorems of Poincaré and Poincaré-Dulac type for analytic non-autonomous differential systems based on the dichotomy spectrum of their linear part. As applications of the theorem, normal forms linearize for two illustrative examples.     

Equivariant Poincaré duality for quantum group actions

We extend the notion of Poincaré duality in KK-theory to the setting of quantum group actions. An important ingredient in our approach is the replacement of ordinary tensor products by braided tensor products. Along the way we discuss general properties of equivariant KK-theory for locally compact quantum groups, including the construction of exterior products. As an example, we prove that the standard Podle? sphere is equivariantly Poincaré dual to itself.     

Sub-elliptic global high order Poincaré inequalities in stratified Lie groups and applications

Sharp Poincaré inequalities on balls or chain type bounded domains have been extensively studied both in classical Euclidean space and Carnot-Carathéodory spaces associated with sub-elliptic vector fields (e.g., vector fields satisfying Hörmander's condition). In this paper, we investigate the validity of sharp global Poincaré inequalities of both first order and higher order on the entire nilpotent stratified Lie groups or on unbounded extension domains in such groups. We will show that simultaneous sharp global Poincaré inequalities also hold and weighted versions of such results remain to be true. More precisely, let G be a nilpotent stratified Lie group and f be in the localized non-isotropic Sobolev space , where 1?p<Q/m and Q is the homogeneous dimension of the Lie group G. Suppose that the mth sub-elliptic derivatives of f is globally Lp integrable; i.e., is finite (but assume that lower order sub-elliptic derivatives are only locally Lp integrable). We denote the space of such functions as Bm,p(G). We prove a high order Poincaré inequality for f minus a polynomial of order m−1 over the entire space G or unbounded extension domains. As applications, we will prove a density theorem stating that smooth functions with compact support are dense in Bm,p(G) modulus a finite-dimensional subspace.     

Asymmetric Poincaré inequalities and solvability of capillarity problems

In this paper we first establish an asymmetric version of the Poincaré inequality in the space of bounded variation functions, and then, basically relying on this result, we discuss the existence, the non-existence and the multiplicity of bounded variation solutions of a class of capillarity problems with asymmetric perturbations.     

Poincaré type inequalities for group measure spaces and related transportation cost inequalities

Let G be a countable discrete group with an orthogonal representation α on a real Hilbert space H  . We prove _Lp$L_p$ Poincaré inequalities for the group measure space _L∞(_ΩH,γ)?G$L_{\infty }({\Omega }_H,\gamma )?G$, where both the group action and the Gaussian measure space (_ΩH,γ)$({\Omega }_H,\gamma )$ are associated with the representation α  . The idea of proof comes from Pisier?s method on the boundedness of Riesz transform and Lust-Piquard?s work on spin systems. Then we deduce a transportation type inequality from the _Lp$L_p$ Poincaré inequalities in the general noncommutative setting. This inequality is sharp up to a constant (in the Gaussian setting). Several applications are given, including Wiener/Rademacher chaos estimation and new examples of Rieffel?s compact quantum metric spaces.     

Self-improving properties of inequalities of Poincaré type on measure spaces and applications

We show that the self-improving nature of Poincaré estimates persists for domains in rather general measure spaces. We consider both weak type and strong type inequalities, extending techniques of B. Franchi, C. Pérez and R. Wheeden. As an application in spaces of homogeneous type, we derive global Poincaré estimates for a class of domains with rough boundaries that we call ?-John domains, and we show that such domains have the requisite properties. This class includes John (or Boman) domains as well as s-John domains. Further applications appear in a companion paper.     

Eigenvalue gaps for the Cauchy process and a Poincaré inequality

A connection between the semigroup of the Cauchy process killed upon exiting a domain D and a mixed boundary value problem for the Laplacian in one dimension higher known as the mixed Steklov problem, was established in [R. Bañuelos, T. Kulczycki, The Cauchy process and the Steklov problem, J. Funct. Anal. 211 (2004) 355-423]. From this, a variational characterization for the eigenvalues λn, n?1, of the Cauchy process in D was obtained. In this paper we obtain a variational characterization of the difference between λn and λ₁. We study bounded convex domains which are symmetric with respect to one of the coordinate axis and obtain lower bound estimates for λ_∗−λ₁ where λ_∗ is the eigenvalue corresponding to the “first” antisymmetric eigenfunction for D. The proof is based on a variational characterization of λ_∗−λ₁ and on a weighted Poincaré-type inequality. The Poincaré inequality is valid for all α symmetric stable processes, 0<α?2, and any other process obtained from Brownian motion by subordination. We also prove upper bound estimates for the spectral gap λ₂−λ₁ in bounded convex domains.     

Poincaré inequalities, uniform domains and extension properties for Newton-Sobolev functions in metric spaces

In the setting of metric measure spaces equipped with a doubling measure supporting a weak p-Poincaré inequality with 1?p<∞, we show that any uniform domain Ω is an extension domain for the Newtonian space N1,p(Ω) and that Ω, together with the metric and the measure inherited from X, supports a weak p-Poincaré inequality. For p>1, we obtain a near characterization of N1,p-extension domains with local estimates for the extension operator.     

Poincaré series and an application to Weyl algebras

Let A n be the n-th Weyl algebra over a field of characteristic 0 and M a finitely generated module over A n . By further exploring the relationship between the Poincar′e series and the dimension and the multiplicity of M , we are able to prove that the tensor product of two finitely generated modules over A n has the multiplicity equal to the product of the multiplicities of both modules. It turns out that we can compute the dimensions and the multiplicities of some homogeneous subquotient modules of A n .     

Does distribution theory contain means for extending Poincaré-Bendixson theory?

We use the theory of distributions to extend the Poincaré-Bendixson theorem and the Bendixson criterion to piecewise Lipschitz continuous system possessing unique and continuous solutions. We demonstrate the use of these extensions by several examples that have recently appeared in the literature.