The heat flow on metric random walk spaces

In this paper we study the Heat Flow on Metric Random Walk Spaces, which unifies into a broad framework the heat flow on locally finite weighted connected graphs, the heat flow determined by finite Markov chains and some nonlocal evolution problems. We give different characterizations of the ergodicity and prove that a metric random walk space with positive Ollivier-Ricci curvature is ergodic. Furthermore, we prove a Cheeger inequality and, as a consequence, we show that a Poincare inequality holds if, and only if, an isoperimetric inequality holds. We also study the Bakry-Emery curvature-dimension condition and its relation with functional inequalities like the Poincare inequality and the transport-information inequalities. (C) 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.