On the Geometry of Metric Measure Spaces with Variable Curvature Bounds

Abstract

Motivated by a classical comparison result of J. C. F. Sturm, we introduce a curvature-dimension condition CD(k, N) for general metric measure spaces, variable lower curvature bound \(k\) and upper dimension bound \(N\ge 1\). In the case of non-zero constant lower curvature, our approach coincides with the celebrated condition that was proposed by Sturm (Acta Math 196(1):133–177, 2006). We prove several geometric properties as sharp Bishop–Gromov volume growth comparison or a sharp generalized Bonnet–Myers theorem (Schneider’s Theorem). In addition, the curvature-dimension condition is stable with respect to measured Gromov–Hausdorff convergence, and it is stable with respect to tensorization of finitely many metric measure spaces provided a non-branching condition is assumed. We also briefly describe possible extensions for variable dimension bounds.