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We give a comprehensive description of Wasserstein gradient flows of maximum mean discrepancy (MMD) functionals $\mathcal F_\nu := \text{MMD}_K^2(\cdot, \nu)$ towards given target measures $\nu$ on the real line, where we focus on the…

Analysis of PDEs · Mathematics 2025-12-05 Richard Duong , Viktor Stein , Robert Beinert , Johannes Hertrich , Gabriele Steidl

Wasserstein gradient flows have become a central tool for optimization problems over probability measures. A natural numerical approach is forward-Euler time discretization. We show, however, that even in the simple case where the energy…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2025-10-16 Yewei Xu , Qin Li

Hydrodynamics describes the evolution of macroscopic states in non--equilibrium thermodynamics. Following Onsager reciprocal relations, one can formulate a large class of hydrodynamic equations as gradient flows of free energies. In recent…

Mathematical Physics · Physics 2026-03-03 Wuchen Li

Assuming a-priori a smooth generating vector field, we introduce a generally covariant measure of the flow geometry called the referential gradient of the flow. The main result is the explicit relation between the referential gradient and…

Mathematical Physics · Physics 2014-11-21 J. K. Edmondson

The paper considers the Euler system of PDE on a smooth compact Riemannian manifold of positive curvature without boundary, and the sphere ${\mathbb{S}}^2$ in particular. The paper interprets the Euler equations as a transport problem for…

Analysis of PDEs · Mathematics 2020-11-24 Gordon Blower

Variational inference is a technique that approximates a target distribution by optimizing within the parameter space of variational families. On the other hand, Wasserstein gradient flows describe optimization within the space of…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-11-01 Mingxuan Yi , Song Liu

We introduce dynamic and static formulations that formally extend unbalanced optimal transport from the space of positive densities to the space of Riemannian metrics. The first construction is based on a dynamic variational formulation in…

Differential Geometry · Mathematics 2026-05-27 Martin Bauer , Peter W. Michor , François-Xavier Vialard

Let K be an irreducible and reversible Markov kernel on a finite set X. We construct a metric W on the set of probability measures on X and show that with respect to this metric, the law of the continuous time Markov chain evolves as the…

Probability · Mathematics 2011-06-17 Jan Maas

The diffusive transport distance, a novel pseudo-metric between probability measures on the real line, is introduced. It generalizes Martingale optimal transport, and forms a hierarchy with the Hellinger and the Wasserstein metrics. We…

Analysis of PDEs · Mathematics 2025-01-27 Daniel Matthes , Eva-Maria Rott , André Schlichting

We propose a variational form of the BDF2 method as an alternative to the commonly used minimizing movement scheme for the time-discrete approximation of gradient flows in abstract metric spaces. Assuming uniform semi-convexity --- but no…

Analysis of PDEs · Mathematics 2017-12-25 Daniel Matthes , Simon Plazotta

In this paper we establish a rigorous gradient flow structure for one-dimensional Kimura equations with respect to some Wasserstein-Shahshahani optimal transport geometry. This is achieved by first conditioning the underlying stochastic…

Analysis of PDEs · Mathematics 2022-10-03 Jean-Baptiste Casteras , Léonard Monsaingeon

A simple model to handle the flow of people in emergency evacuation situations is considered: at every point x, the velocity U(x) that individuals at x would like to realize is given. Yet, the incompressibility constraint prevents this…

Analysis of PDEs · Mathematics 2010-02-04 Bertrand Maury , Aude Roudneff-Chupin , Filippo Santambrogio

Gradient bounds had proved to be a very efficient tool for the control of the rate of convergence to equilibrium for parabolic evolution equations. Among the gradient bounds methods, the celebrated Bakry-\'Emery criterion is a powerful way…

Analysis of PDEs · Mathematics 2016-02-25 Fabrice Baudoin

We define a functional for Hermitian metrics using the curvature of the Chern connection. The Euler-Lagrange equation for this functional is an elliptic equation for Hermitian metrics. Solutions to this equation are related to…

Differential Geometry · Mathematics 2009-01-26 Jeffrey Streets , Gang Tian

We prove the existence of weak solutions to a system of two diffusion equations that are coupled by a pointwise volume constraint. The time evolution is given by gradient dynamics for a free energy functional. Our primary example is a model…

Analysis of PDEs · Mathematics 2020-03-18 Clément Cancès , Daniel Matthes

Many tasks in machine learning and signal processing can be solved by minimizing a convex function of a measure. This includes sparse spikes deconvolution or training a neural network with a single hidden layer. For these problems, we study…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-10-30 Lenaic Chizat , Francis Bach

We propose a spatial discretization of the fourth-order nonlinear DLSS equation on the circle. Our choice of discretization is motivated by a novel gradient flow formulation with respect to a metric that generalizes martingale transport.…

Analysis of PDEs · Mathematics 2025-02-14 Daniel Matthes , Eva-Maria Rott , Giuseppe Savaré , André Schlichting

We present a short overview on the strongest variational formulation for gradient flows of geodesically $\lambda$-convex functionals in metric spaces, with applications to diffusion equations in Wasserstein spaces of probability measures.…

Classical Analysis and ODEs · Mathematics 2010-09-21 Sara Daneri , Giuseppe Savaré

We introduce Wasserstein-like dynamical transport distances between vector-valued densities on the real line. The mobility function from the scalar theory is replaced by a mobility matrix, that is subject to positivity and concavity…

Analysis of PDEs · Mathematics 2016-01-18 Jonathan Zinsl , Daniel Matthes

We consider the Wasserstein metric on the Gaussian mixture models (GMMs), which is defined as the pullback of the full Wasserstein metric on the space of smooth probability distributions with finite second moment. It derives a class of…

Probability · Mathematics 2023-09-25 Wuchen Li , Jiaxi Zhao