A link between the log-Sobolev inequality and Lyapunov condition (1410.6080v4)

Abstract: We give an alternative look at the log-Sobolev inequality (LSI in short) for log-concave measures by semigroup tools. The similar idea yields a heat flow proof of LSI under some quadratic Lyapunov condition for symmetric diffusions on Riemannian manifolds provided the Bakry-Emery's curvature is bounded from below. Let's mention that, the general $\phi$-Lyapunov conditions were introduced by Cattiaux-Guillin-Wang-Wu [8] to study functional inequalities, and the above result on LSI was first proved subject to $\phi(\cdot)=d^2(\cdot, x_0)$ by Cattiaux-Guillin-Wu [9] through a combination of detective $L^2$ transportation-information inequality $\mathrm{W_2I}$ and the HWI inequality of Otto-Villani. Next, we assert a converse implication that the Lyapunov condition can be derived from LSI, which means their equivalence in the above setting.