In 1997, J. Jost [27] and F. H. Lin [39], independently proved that every energy minimizing harmonic map from an Alexandrov space with curvature bounded from below to an Alexandrov space with non-positive curvature is locally Holder continuous. In [3
9], F. H. Lin proposed a challenge problem: Can the Holder continuity be improved to Lipschitz continuity? J. Jost also asked a similar problem about Lipschitz regularity of harmonic maps between singular spaces (see Page 38 in [28]). The main theorem of this paper gives a complete resolution to it.
In the previous work [35], the second and third authors established a Bochner type formula on Alexandrov spaces. The purpose of this paper is to give some applications of the Bochner type formula. Firstly, we extend the sharp lower bound estimates of
spectral gap, due to Chen-Wang [9, 10] and Bakry-Qian [6], from smooth Riemannian manifolds to Alexandrov spaces. As an application, we get an Obata type theorem for Alexandrov spaces. Secondly, we obtain (sharp) Li-Yaus estimate for positve solutions of heat equations on Alexandrov spaces.
In this paper, we establish a Bochner type formula on Alexandrov spaces with Ricci curvature bounded below. Yaus gradient estimate for harmonic functions is also obtained on Alexandrov spaces.
Recently, in [49], a new definition for lower Ricci curvature bounds on Alexandrov spaces was introduced by the authors. In this article, we extend our research to summarize the geometric and analytic results under this Ricci condition. In particular
, two new results, the rigidity result of Bishop-Gromov volume comparison and Lipschitz continuity of heat kernel, are obtained.
In this paper, we introduce a new notion for lower bounds of Ricci curvature on Alexandrov spaces, and extend Cheeger-Gromoll splitting theorem and Chengs maximal diameter theorem to Alexandrov spaces under this Ricci curvature condition.
