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This thesis is broadly divided in two parts. In the first part we give a survey of various distances between metric spaces, namely the uniform distance, Lipschitz distance, Hausdor distance and the Gramoz Hausdor distance. Here we talk about only the most basic of their properties and give a few illustrative examples. As we wish to study collections of metric measure spaces, which are triples (X; d; m) consisting of a complete separable metric space (X; d) and a Boral probability measure m on X, there are discussions about some distances between them. Among the three that we discuss, the transportation and distortion distances were introduced by Sturm. The later, denoted by 2, on the space X2 of all metric measure spaces having finite L2-size is the focus of the second part of this thesis. The second part is an exposition based on the work done by Sturm. Here we prove a number of results on the analytic and geometric properties of (X2; 2). Beginning by noting that (X2; 2) is a non-complete space, we try to understand its completion. Towards this end, the notion of a gauged measure space is useful. These are triples (X; f; m) where X is a Polish space, m a Boral probability measure on X and f a function, also called a gauge, on X X that is symmetric and square integral with respect to the product measure m2. We show that, Theorem 1. The completion of (X2; 2) consists of all gauged measure spaces where the gauges satisfy triangle inequality almost everywhere. We denote the space of all gauged measure spaces by Y. The space X2 can be embedded in Y and the transportation distance 2 extends easily from X2 to Y. These two spaces turn out to have similar geometric properties. On both these spaces 2 is a strictly intrinsic metric; i.e. any two members in them can be joined by a shortest path. But more importantly, using a description of the geodesics in these spaces, the following result is proved. Theorem 2. Both (X2; 2) and (Y; 2) have non-negative curvature in the sense of Alexandrov.

The traditional first-order analysis in Euclidean spaces relies on the Sobolev spaces W1,p(Ω), where Ω ⊂ Rn is open and p ∈ [1, ∞].The Sobolev norm is then defined as the sum of Lp norms of a function and its distributional gradient.We generalize the notion of Sobolev spaces in two different ways. First, the underlying function norm will be replaced by the “norm” of a quasi-Banach function lattice. Second, we will investigate functions defined on an abstract metric measure space and that is why the distributional gradients need to be substituted. The thesis consists of two papers. The first one builds up the elementary theory of Newtonian spaces based on quasi-Banach function lattices. These lattices are complete linear spaces of measurable functions with a topology given by a quasinorm satisfying the lattice property. Newtonian spaces are first-order Sobolev-type spaces on abstract metric measure spaces, where the role of weak derivatives is passed on to upper gradients. Tools such asmoduli of curve families and the Sobolev capacity are developed, which allows us to study basic properties of the Newtonian functions.We will see that Newtonian spaces can be equivalently defined using the notion of weak upper gradients, which increases the number of techniques available to study these spaces. The absolute continuity of Newtonian functions along curves and the completeness of Newtonian spaces in this general setting are also established. The second paper in the thesis then continues with investigation of properties of Newtonian spaces based on quasi-Banach function lattices. The set of all weak upper gradients of a Newtonian function is of particular interest.We will prove that minimalweak upper gradients exist in this general setting.Assuming that Lebesgue’s differentiation theoremholds for the underlyingmetricmeasure space,wewill find a family of representation formulae. Furthermore, the connection between pointwise convergence of a sequence of Newtonian functions and its convergence in norm is studied.

This thesis consists of four papers and focuses on function spaces related to first-order analysis in abstract metric measure spaces. The classical (i.e., Sobolev) theory in Euclidean spaces makes use of summability of distributional gradients, whose definition depends on the linear structure of Rn. In metric spaces, we can replace the distributional gradients by (weak) upper gradients that control the functions’ behavior along (almost) all rectifiable curves, which gives rise to the so-called Newtonian spaces. The summability condition, considered in the thesis, is expressed using a general Banach function lattice quasi-norm and so an extensive framework is built. Sobolev-type spaces (mainly based on the Lp norm) on metric spaces, and Newtonian spaces in particular, have been under intensive study since the mid-1990s. In Paper I, the elementary theory of Newtonian spaces based on quasi-Banach function lattices is built up. Standard tools such as moduli of curve families and the Sobolev capacity are developed and applied to study the basic properties of Newtonian functions. Summability of a (weak) upper gradient of a function is shown to guarantee the function’s absolute continuity on almost all curves. Moreover, Newtonian spaces are proven complete in this general setting. Paper II investigates the set of all weak upper gradients of a Newtonian function. In particular, existence of minimal weak upper gradients is established. Validity of Lebesgue’s differentiation theorem for the underlying metric measure space ensures that a family of representation formulae for minimal weak upper gradients can be found. Furthermore, the connection between pointwise and norm convergence of a sequence of Newtonian functions is studied. Smooth functions are frequently used as an approximation of Sobolev functions in analysis of partial differential equations. In fact, Lipschitz continuity, which is (unlike <img src="http://www.diva-portal.org/cgi-bin/mimetex.cgi?%5Cmathcal%7BC%7D%5E1" />-smoothness) well-defined even for functions on metric spaces, often suffices as a regularity condition. Thus, Paper III concentrates on the question when Lipschitz functions provide good approximations of Newtonian functions. As shown in the paper, it suffices that the function lattice quasi-norm is absolutely continuous and a fractional sharp maximal operator satisfies a weak norm estimate, which it does, e.g., in doubling Poincaré spaces if a non-centered maximal operator of Hardy–Littlewood type is locally weakly bounded. Therefore, such a local weak boundedness on rearrangement-invariant spaces is explored as well. Finer qualitative properties of Newtonian functions and the Sobolev capacity get into focus in Paper IV. Under certain hypotheses, Newtonian functions are proven to be quasi-continuous, which yields that the capacity is an outer capacity. Various sufficient conditions for local boundedness and continuity of Newtonian functions are established. Finally, quasi-continuity is applied to discuss density of locally Lipschitz functions in Newtonian spaces on open subsets of doubling Poincaré spaces.

Cette thèse traite de plusieurs sujets d'analyse dans les espaces métriques mesurés, en lien avec le transport optimal et des conditions de courbure-dimension. Nous considérons en particulier les équations de continuité dans ces espaces, du point de vue de fonctionnelles continues sur les espaces de Sobolev, et du point de vue de la dualité avec les courbes absolument continues dans l'espace de Wasserstein. Sous une condition de courbure-dimension, mais sans condition de doublement de mesure ou d'inégalité de Poincaré, nous montrons également l'identification des p-gradients faibles. Nous étudions ensuite les espaces de Sobolev sur le produit tordu de l'ensemble des réels et d'un espace métrique mesuré. En particulier, nous montrons la propriété Sobolev-à-Lipschitz sous une certaine condition de courbure-dimension. Enfin, sous une telle condition et dans le cadre d'une théorie non-lisse de Bakry-Emery, nous obtenons une inégalité améliorée de Bochner et proposons une définition du N-tenseur de Ricci. / This thesis concerns in some topics on calculus in metric measure spaces, in connection with optimal transport theory and curvature-dimension conditions. We study the continuity equations on metric measure spaces, in the viewpoint of continuous functionals on Sobolev spaces, and in the viewpoint of the duality with respect to absolutely continuous curves in the Wasserstein space. We study the Sobolev spaces of warped products of a real line and a metric measure space. We prove the 'Pythagoras theorem' for both cartesian products and warped products, and prove Sobolev-to-Lipschitz property for warped products under a certain curvature-dimension condition. We also prove the identification of p-weak gradients under curvature-dimension condition, without the doubling condition or local Poincaré inequality. At last, using the non-smooth Bakry-Emery theory on metric measure spaces, we obtain a Bochner inequality and propose a definition of N-Ricci tensor.