Sharp Poincaré inequalities under Measure Contraction Property

Abstract: We prove a sharp Poincar\'e inequality for subsets $\Omega$ of (essentially non-branching) metric measure spaces satisfying the Measure Contraction Property $\textrm{MCP}(K,N)$, whose diameter is bounded above by $D$. This is achieved by identifying the corresponding one-dimensional model densities and a localization argument, ensuring that the Poincar\'e constant we obtain is best possible as a function of $K$, $N$ and $D$. Another new feature of our work is that we do not need to assume that $\Omega$ is geodesically convex, by employing the geodesic hull of $\Omega$ on the energy side of the Poincar\'e inequality. In particular, our results apply to geodesic balls in ideal sub-Riemannian manifolds, such as the Heisenberg group.