Weak curvature conditions on metric graphs

Abstract

Starting from pointwise gradient estimates for the heat semigroup, we study three characterizations of weak lower curvature bounds on metric graphs. More precisely, we prove the equivalence between a weak notion of the Bakry-Émery curvature condition, a weak Evolutionary Variational Inequality and a weak form of geodesic convexity. The proof is based on a careful regularization of absolutely continuous curves together with an explicit representation of the Cheeger energy. We conclude with a brief discussion on possible applications to the Schrödinger bridge problem on metric graphs.