Abstract. We study the relationship between two classical approaches for quantitative ergodic properties: the first one based on Lyapunov type controls and popularized by Meyn and Tweedie, the second one based on functional inequalities (of Poincaré type). We show that they can be linked through new inequalities (Lyapunov-Poincaré inequalities). Explicit examples for diffusion processes are studied, improving some results in the literature. The example of the kinetic Fokker-Planck equation recently studied by Hérau-Nier, Helffer-Nier and Villani is in particular discussed in the final section.

We show that for convex domains in Euclidean space, Cheeger’s isoperimetric inequality, spectral gap of the Neumann Laplacian, exponential concentration of Lipschitz functions, and the a-priori weakest requirement that Lipschitz functions have arbitrarily slow uniform tail-decay, are all quantitatively equivalent (to within universal constants, independent of the dimension). This substantially extends previous results of Maz’ya, Cheeger, Gromov– Milman, Buser and Ledoux. As an application, we conclude a sharp quantitative stability result for the spectral gap of convex domains under convex perturbations which preserve volume (up to constants) and under maps which are “on-average ” Lipschitz. We also provide a new characterization (up to constants) of the spectral gap of a convex domain, as one over the square of the average distance from the “worst ” subset having half the measure of the domain. In addition, we easily recover and extend many previously known lower bounds on the spectral gap of convex domains, due to Payne–Weinberger, Li–Yau, Kannan– Lovász–Simonovits, Bobkov and Sodin. The proof involves estimates on the diffusion semigroup following Bakry–Ledoux and a result from Riemannian Geometry on the concavity of the isoperimetric profile. Our results extend to the more general setting of Riemannian manifolds with density which satisfy the CD(0, ∞) curvature-dimension condition of Bakry-Émery. 1

In this paper we introduce and study a weakened form of logarithmic Sobolev inequalities in connection with various others functional inequalities (weak Poincaré inequalities, general Beckner inequalities...). We also discuss the quantitative behaviour of relative entropy along a symmetric diffusion semi-group. In particular, we exhibit an example where Poincaré inequality can not be used for deriving entropic convergence whence weak logarithmic Sobolev inequality ensures the result.

E l e c t r o n

Abstract. In this paper we derive non asymptotic deviation bounds for ∣∣ ∣ t

Abstract. This paper presents different approaches, based on functional inequalities, to study the speed of convergence in total variation distance of ergodic diffusion processes with initial law satisfying a given integrability condition. To this end, we give a general upper bound “à la Pinsker ” enabling us to study our problem firstly via usual functional inequalities (Poincaré inequality, weak Poincaré,...) and truncation procedure, and secondly through the introduction of new functional inequalities Iψ. These Iψ-inequalities are characterized through measure-capacity conditions and F-Sobolev inequalities. A direct study of the decay of Hellinger distance is also proposed. Finally we show how a dynamic approach based on reversing the role of the semi-group and the invariant measure can lead to interesting bounds. Résumé. Nous étudions ici la vitesse de convergence, pour la distance en variation totale, de diffusions ergodiques dont la loi initiale satisfait une intégrabilité donnée. Nous présentons différentes approches basées sur l’utilisation d’inégalités fonctionnelles. La première étape consiste à donner une borne générale à la Pinsker. Cette borne permet alors d’utiliser, en les combinant à une procedure de troncature, des inégalités usuelles (telles Poincaré ou Poincaré faibles,...). Dans un deuxième temps nous introduisons de nouvelles inégalités appelées Iψ que nous caractérisons à l’aide de condition de type capacité-mesure et d’inégalités de type F-Sobolev. Une étude directe de la distance de Hellinger est également proposée. Pour conclure, une approche dynamique basée sur le renversement du rôle du semigroupe de diffusion et de la mesure invariante permet d’obtenir de nouvelles bornes intéressantes. Key words: total variation, diffusion processes, speed of convergence, Poincaré inequality, logarithmic Sobolev inequality, F-Sobolev inequality. MSC 2000: 26D10, 60E15.

Various properties of isoperimetric, functional, Transport-Entropy and concentration inequalities are studied on a Riemannian manifold equipped with a measure, whose generalized Ricci curvature is bounded from below. First, stability of these inequalities with respect to perturbation of the measure is obtained. The extent of the perturbation is measured using several different distances between perturbed and original measure, such as a one-sided L ∞ bound on the ratio between their densities, Wasserstein distances, and Kullback-Leibler divergence. In particular, an extension of the Holley–Stroock perturbation lemma for the log-Sobolev inequality is obtained. Second, the equivalence of Transport-Entropy inequalities with different cost functions is verified, by obtaining a reverse Jensen type inequality. In view of a recent result of Gozlan, this is used to obtain tensorization properties of concentration inequalities with respect to various product-metrics, and the tensorization result for isoperimetric inequalities of Barthe–Cattiaux–Roberto is easily recovered. Some further applications are also described. The main tool used is a previous precise result on the equivalence between concentration and isoperimetric inequalities in the described setting. 1

Abstract. We develop a technique to obtain new symmetrization inequalities that provide a unified framework to study Sobolev inequalities, concentration inequalities and sharp integrability of solutions of elliptic equations.

Abstract. We show how to use Lyapunov functions to obtain functional inequalities which are stronger than Poincaré inequality (for instance logarithmic Sobolev or F-Sobolev). The case of Poincaré and weak Poincaré inequalities was studied in [2]. This approach allows us to recover and extend in an unified way some known criteria in the euclidean case (Bakry-Emery, Wang, Kusuoka-Stroock...).

We find sufficient conditions for a probability measure µ to satisfy an inequality of the type Rd f 2 (