Rigidity for the logarithmic Sobolev inequality on complete metric measure spaces

Abstract: In this work, we study the rigidity problem for the logarithmic Sobolev inequality on a complete metric measure space $(M^n,g,f)$ with Bakry-\'Emery Ricci curvature satisfying $Ric_f\geq \frac{a}{2}g$, for some $a>0$. We prove that if equality holds then $M$ is isometric to $\Sigma\times \mathbb{R}$ for some complete $(n-1)$-dimensional Riemannian manifold $\Sigma$ and by passing an isometry, $(M^n,g,f)$ must split off the Gaussian shrinking soliton $(\mathbb{R}, dt^2, \frac{a}{2}|.|^2)$. This was proved in 2019 by Ohta and Takatsu. In this paper, we prove this rigidity result using a different method.