The Cheeger cut and Cheeger problem in metric measure spaces

Abstract

In this paper we study the Cheeger cut and Cheeger problem in the general framework of metric measure spaces. A central motivation for developing our results has been the desire to unify the assumptions and methods employed in various specific spaces, such as Riemannian manifolds, Heisenberg groups, graphs, etc. We obtain two characterization of the Cheeger constant: a variational one and another one through the eigenvalue of the 1-Laplacian. We obtain a Cheeger inequality along the lines of the classical one for Riemannian manifolds obtained by Cheeger in (In: Gunning RC (ed) Problems in analysis. Princeton University Press, Princeton, pp 195–199, 1970). We also study the Cheeger problem. Through a variational characterization of the Cheeger sets we prove the existence of Cheeger sets and obtain a characterization of the calibrable sets and a version of the Max Flow Min Cut Theorem.