Heat flow on Alexandrov spaces

Abstract: We prove that on compact Alexandrov spaces with curvature bounded below the gradient flow of the Dirichlet energy in the $L^2$-space produces the same evolution as the gradient flow of the relative entropy in the $L^2$-Wasserstein space. This means that the heat flow is well defined by either one of the two gradient flows. Combining properties of these flows, we are able to deduce the Lipschitz continuity of the heat kernel as well as Bakry-\'Emery gradient estimates and the $\Gamma_2$-condition. Our identification is established by purely metric means, unlike preceding results relying on PDE techniques. Our approach generalizes to the case of heat flow with drift.