English

Wasserstein distances and divergences of order $p$ by quantum channels

Mathematical Physics 2026-04-28 v3 math.MP Operator Algebras Quantum Physics

Abstract

We introduce a non-quadratic generalization of the quantum mechanical optimal transport problem introduced in [De Palma and Trevisan, Ann. Henri Poincar\'e, {\bf 22} (2021), 3199-3234] where quantum channels realize the transport. Relying on this general machinery, we introduce pp-Wasserstein distances and divergences and study their fundamental geometric properties. Finally, we prove triangle inequality for quadratic Wasserstein divergences under the sole assumption that an arbitrary one of the states involved is pure, which is a generalization of our previous result in this direction.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2501.08066,
  title  = {Wasserstein distances and divergences of order $p$ by quantum channels},
  author = {Gergely Bunth and József Pitrik and Tamás Titkos and Dániel Virosztek},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.08066},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

27 pages. v2: new references added v3: Proposition 3 added