English

The Monge-Kantorovich problem on Wasserstein space

Probability 2024-10-10 v2 Optimization and Control

Abstract

We consider the Monge-Kantorovich problem between two random measuress. More precisely, given probability measures P1,P2P(P(M))\mathbb{P}_1,\mathbb{P}_2\in\mathcal{P}(\mathcal{P}(M)) on the space P(M)\mathcal{P}(M) of probability measures on a smooth compact manifold, we study the optimal transport problem between P1\mathbb{P}_1 and P2\mathbb{P}_2 where the cost function is given by the squared Wasserstein distance W22(μ,ν)W_2^2(\mu,\nu) between μ,νP(M)\mu,\nu \in \mathcal{P}(M). Under appropriate assumptions on P1\mathbb{P}_1, we prove that there exists a unique optimal plan and that it takes the form of an optimal map. An extension of this result to cost functions of the form h(W2(μ,ν))h(W_2(\mu,\nu)), for strictly convex and strictly increasing functions hh, is also established. The proofs rely heavily on a recent result of Schiavo \cite{schiavo2020rademacher}, which establishes a version of Rademacher's theorem on Wasserstein space.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2406.08585,
  title  = {The Monge-Kantorovich problem on Wasserstein space},
  author = {Pedram Emami and Brendan Pass},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2406.08585},
  year   = {2024}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T17:03:42.290Z