Dirichlet metric measure spaces: spectrum, irreducibility, and small deviations

In the context of irreducible ultracontractive Dirichlet metric measure spaces, we demonstrate the discreteness of the Laplacian spectrum and the corresponding diffusion's irreducibility in connected open sets, without assuming regularity of the boundary. This general result can be applied to study various questions, including those related to small deviations of the diffusion and generalized heat content. Our examples include Riemannian and sub-Riemannian manifolds, as well as non-smooth and fractal spaces.