$W$-entropy formulas on super Ricci flows and Langevin deformation on Wasserstein space over Riemannian manifolds

Abstract

In this survey paper, we give an overview of our recent works on the study of the $W$-entropy for the heat equation associated with the Witten Laplacian on super-Ricci flows and the Langevin deformation on Wasserstein space over Riemannian manifolds. Inspired by Perelman's seminal work on the entropy formula for the Ricci flow, we prove the $W$-entropy formula for the heat equation associated with the Witten Laplacian on $n$-dimensional complete Riemannian manifolds with the $CD(K, m)$-condition, and the $W$-entropy formula for the heat equation associated with the time dependent Witten Laplacian on $n$-dimensional compact manifolds equipped with a $(K, m)$-super Ricci flow, where $K\in \mathbb{R}$ and $m\in [n, \infty]$. Furthermore, we prove an analogue of the $W$-entropy formula for the geodesic flow on the Wasserstein space over Riemannian manifolds. Our result recaptures an important result due to Lott and Villani on the displacement convexity of the Boltzmann-Shannon entropy on Riemannian manifolds with non-negative Ricci curvature. To better understand the similarity between above two $W$-entropy formulas, we introduce the Langevin deformation of geometric flows on the cotangent bundle over the Wasserstein space and prove an extension of the $W$-entropy formula for the Langevin deformation. Finally, we make a discussion on the $W$-entropy for the Ricci flow from the point of view of statistical mechanics and probability theory.