Analytic inequalities, isoperimetric inequalities and logarithmic Sobolev inequalities

Abstract

There is a simple equivalence between isoperimetric inequalities in Riemannian manifolds and certain analytic inequalities on the same manifold, more extensive than the familiar equivalence of the classical isoperimetric inequality in Euclidean space and the associated Sobolev inequality. By an isoperimetric inequality in this connection we mean any inequality involving the Riemannian volume and Riemannian surface measure of a subset α and its boundary, respectively. We exploit the equivalence to give log-Sobolev inequalities for Riemannian manifolds. Some applications to Schrödinger equations are also given.