Curvature, Hodge-Dirac operators and Riesz transforms

Abstract: We introduce a notion of Ricci curvature lower bound for symmetric sub-Markovian semigroups. We use this notion to investigate functional calculus of the Hodge-Dirac operator associated to the semigroup in link with the boundedness of suitable Riesz transforms. Our paper offers a unified framework that not only encapsulates existing results in some contexts but also yields new findings in others. This is demonstrated through applications in the frameworks of Riemannian manifolds, compact (quantum) groups, noncommutative tori, Ornstein-Uhlenbeck semigroup, $q$-Ornstein-Uhlenbeck semigroups and semigroups of Schur multipliers. We also provide an $\mathrm{L}^p$-Poincar\'e inequality that is applicable to all previously discussed contexts under assumptions of boundedness of Riesz transforms and uniform exponential stability. Finally, we prove the boundedness of some Riesz transforms in some contexts as compact Lie groups.