Greedy Matching in Optimal Transport with concave cost
Classical Analysis and ODEs
2025-08-28 v2 Optimization and Control
Probability
Abstract
We consider the optimal transport problem between a set of red points and a set of blue points subject to a concave cost function such as for . Our focus is on a particularly simple matching algorithm: match the closest red and blue point, remove them both and repeat. We prove that it provides good results in any metric space when the cost function is with . Empirically, the algorithm produces results that are remarkably close to optimal -- especially as the cost function gets more concave; this suggests that greedy matching may be a good toy model for Optimal Transport for very concave transport cost.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2307.03140,
title = {Greedy Matching in Optimal Transport with concave cost},
author = {Andrea Ottolini and Stefan Steinerberger},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2307.03140},
year = {2025}
}