A nonlinear Li-Yau inequality and its consequences

Abstract

We prove a sharp nonlinear version of the celebrated Li-Yau inequality for positive solutions of the normalized parabolic $p$-Laplacian equation $u_t = Δu + (p-2)|\nabla u|^{-2}\nabla^2u(\nabla u,\nabla u)$, $1<p<\infty$, on a closed Riemannian manifold with nonnegative Ricci curvature, the equation being interpreted in the viscosity sense on the critical set of the solution. The constant is best possible, even within the class of closed manifolds: it is attained identically by an explicit self-similar solution in flat $\Rn$, and its sharpness transfers to the compact setting through a large-torus limit along the flat tori $\mathbb R^n/(L\mathbb Z)^n$, $L \to \infty$. The proof rests on an exact Bochner-type identity for a family of uniformly parabolic approximating flows in which the second-order regularization and the first-order eikonal term are decoupled: for this family the maximum principle applies with the sharp constant, uniformly in the regularization parameter, and with no assumption on the critical set of the solution. The identity is moreover form-invariant under the classical $α$-relaxation of the Li-Yau functional; as a consequence we also obtain the corresponding inequality on closed manifolds with $\operatorname{Ric} \ge -κ$ (again with no assumption beyond the Ricci lower bound), and, on complete noncompact manifolds with $\operatorname{Ric} \ge 0$, the sharp inequality for the approximating flows -- again with no assumption on the critical set -- under a cutoff hypothesis on the distance function (automatic in $\Rn$, and, for $p \ge 2$, under nonnegative sectional curvature) and a qualitative polynomial growth condition on the Li-Yau quantity, satisfied, with exponent zero, by the extremal profile. A sharp global Harnack inequality follows.