In the first part of the paper we briefly decribe the classical problem, raised by Monge in 1781, of optimal transportation of mass. We discuss also Kantorovich's weak solution of the problem, which leads to general existence results, to a dual formulation, and to necessary and sufficient optimality conditions. In the second part we describe some recent progress on the problem of the existence of optimal transport maps. We show that in several cases optimal transport maps can be obtained by a singular perturbation technique based on the theory of $Γ$-convergence, which yields as a byproduct existence and stability results for classical Monge solutions.
A measure theoretical approach is presented to study the Monge-Kantorovich optimal mass transport problem. This approach together with Kantorovich duality provide an effective tool to answer a long standing question about the support of optimal plans for the mass transport problem involving general cost functions. We also establish a criterion for the uniqueness.
Symmetric Monge-Kantorovich transport problems involving a cost function given by a family of vector fields were used by Ghoussoub-Moameni to establish polar decompositions of such vector fields into $m$-cyclically monotone maps composed with measure preserving $m$-involutions ($m\geq 2$). In this note, we relate these symmetric transport problems to the Brenier solutions of the Monge and Monge-Kantorovich problem, as well as to the Gangbo-Świȩch solutions of their multi-marginal counterparts, both of which involving quadratic cost functions.
We consider the multidimensional Monge-Kantrovich transport problem in an abstract setting. Our main results state that if a cost function and marginal measures are invariant by a family of transformations, then a solution of the Kantrovich relaxation problem and a solution of its dual can be chosen so that they are invariant under the same family of transformations. This provides a new tool to study and analyze the support of optimal transport plans and consequently to scrutinize the Monge problem. Birkhoff's Ergodic theorem is an essential tool in our analysis.
We consider a system of PDEs of Monge-Kantorovich type arising from models in granular matter theory and in electrodynamics of hard superconductors. The existence of a solution of such system (in a regular open domain $Ω\subset\mathbb{R}^n$), whose construction is based on an asymmetric Minkowski distance from the boundary of $Ω$, was already established in [G. Crasta and A. Malusa, The distance function from the boundary in a Minkowski space, to appear in Trans. Amer. Math. Soc.]. In this paper we prove that this solution is essentially unique. A fundamental tool in our analysis is a new regu…
We obtain solutions of the nonlinear degenerate parabolic equation \[ \frac{\partial ρ}{\partial t} = {div} \Big\{ρ\nabla c^\star [ \nabla (F^\prime(ρ)+V) ] \Big\} \] as a steepest descent of an energy with respect to a convex cost functional. The method used here is variational. It requires less uniform convexity assumption than that imposed by Alt and Luckhaus in their pioneering work \cite{luckhaus:quasilinear}. In fact, their assumption may fail in our equation. This class of problems includes the Fokker-Planck equation, the porous-medium equation, the fast diffusion equation, and the para…
It is shown that the problem of designing a two-reflector system transforming a plane wave front with given intensity into an output plane front with prescribed output intensity can be formulated and solved as the Monge-Kantorovich mass transfer problem.
The Monge-Kantorovich mass transfer problem is equivalently formulated as a convex optimization problem for a potential function. In the light of this formulation an interative algorithm is developed for determining the solution. It is a gradient flow algorithm and each iterate solves a linear elliptic equation. Well-posedness and convergence of the proposed method are analyzed and numerical findings are presented.
The paper is accompanying "A general Duality Theorem for the Monge-Kantorovich Transport Problem". We explain the methods used in this article in an elementary setting and present two examples complementing the results obtained therein.
For any given integer $N\geq 2$, we show that every bounded measurable vector field from a bounded domain $Ω$ into $\R^d$ is $N$-cyclically monotone up to a measure preserving $N$-involution. The proof involves the solution of a multidimensional symmetric Monge-Kantorovich problem, which we first study in the case of a general cost function on a product domain $Ω^N$. The polar decomposition described above corresponds to a special cost function derived from the vector field in question (actually $N-1$ of them). In this case, we show that the supremum over all probability measures on $Ω^N$ whic…
We shall present a measure theoretical approach for which together with the Kantorovich duality provide an efficient tool to study the optimal transport problem. Specifically, we study the support of optimal plans where the cost function does not satisfy the classical twist condition in the two marginal problem as well as in the multi-marginal case when twistedness is limited to certain subsets.
The dynamics of globally minimizing orbits of Lagrangian systems can be studied using the Barrier function, as Mather first did, or using the pairs of weak KAM solutions introduced by Fathi. The central observation of the present paper is that Fathi weak KAM pairs are precisely the admissible pairs for the Kantorovich problem dual to the Monge transportation problem with the Barrier function as cost. We exploit this observation to recover several relations between the Barrier functions and the set of weak KAM pairs in an axiomatic and elementary way.
We transfer the celebrating Monge-Kontorovich problem in a bounded domain of Euclidean plane into a Dirichlet boundary problem associated to a quasi-linear elliptic equation with $0-$order term missing in its diffusion coefficients: \begin{eqnarray*} A(x, F'_x)F''_{xx}+B(y, F'_y)F''_{yy}&=&C(x, y, F'_x, F'_y) \end{eqnarray*} where $A(.,.)>0, B(.,.)>0$ and $C$ are functions based on the initial distributions, $F$ is an unknown probability distribution function and therefore closed the former problem.
The notion of Nash equilibria plays a key role in the analysis of strategic interactions in the framework of $N$ player games. Analysis of Nash equilibria is however a complex issue when the number of players is large. In this article we emphasize the role of optimal transport theory in: 1) the passage from Nash to Cournot-Nash equilibria as the number of players tends to infinity, 2) the analysis of Cournot-Nash equilibria.
We solve a generalized Kyle model type problem using Monge-Kantorovich duality and backward stochastic partial differential equations. First, we show that the the generalized Kyle model with dynamic information can be recast into a terminal optimization problem with distributional constraints. Therefore, the theory of optimal transport between spaces of unequal dimension comes as a natural tool. Second, the pricing rule of the market maker and an optimality criterion for the problem of the informed trader are established using the Kantorovich potentials and transport maps. Finally, we complete…
We study a multi-marginal optimal transportation problem. Under certain conditions on the cost function and the first marginal, we prove that the solution to the relaxed, Kantorovich version of the problem induces a solution to the Monge problem and that the solutions to both problems are unique.
It is known from clever mathematical examples \cite{Ca10} that the Monge ansatz may fail in continuous two-marginal optimal transport (alias optimal coupling alias optimal assignment) problems. Here we show that this effect already occurs for finite assignment problems with $N=3$ marginals, $\ell=3$ 'sites', and symmetric pairwise costs, with the values for $N$ and $\ell$ both being optimal. Our counterexample is a transparent consequence of the convex geometry of the set of symmetric Kantorovich plans for $N=\ell=3$, which -- as we show -- possess 22 extreme points, only 7 of which are Monge.…
In this paper, we extend the upper and lower bounds for the "pseudo-distance" on quantum densities analogous to the quadratic Monge-Kantorovich(-Vasershtein) distance introduced in [F. Golse, C. Mouhot, T. Paul, Commun. Math. Phys. 343 (2016) 165-205] to positive quantizations defined in terms of the family of phase space translates of a density operator, not necessarily of rank one as in the case of the Töplitz quantization. As a corollary, we prove that the uniform (for vanishing h) convergence rate for the mean-field limit of the N-particle Heisenberg equation holds for a much wider class o…
We consider two variational evolution problems related to Monge-Kantorovich mass transfer. These problems provide models for collapsing sandpiles and for compression molding. We prove the following connection between these problems and nonlocal geometric curvature motion: The distance functions to surfaces moving according to certain nonlocal geometric laws are solutions of the variational evolution problems. Thus we do the first step of the proof of heuristics developed in earlier works. The main techniques we use are differential equations methods in the Monge-Kantorovich theory.
We consider symmetric multi-marginal Kantorovich optimal transport problems on finite state spaces with uniform-marginal constraint. These problems consist of minimizing a linear objective function over a high-dimensional polytope, here referred to as Kantorovich polytope. The presented results are of split nature, computational and theoretical. Within the computational part only small numbers of marginals $N$ and marginal sites $\ell$ are considered. This restriction allows us to computationally determine all extreme points of the Kantorovich polytope and investigate how many of them are in c…
We investigate the properties of convex functions in the plane that satisfy a local inequality which generalizes the notion of sub-solution of Monge-Ampere equation for a Monge-Kantorovich problem with quadratic cost between non-absolutely continuous measures. For each measure, we introduce a discrete scale so that the measure behaves as an absolutely continuous measure up to that scale. Our main theorem then proves that such convex functions cannot exhibit any flat part at a scale larger than the corresponding discrete scales on the measures. This, in turn, implies a $C^1$ regularity result u…
We present a new ansatz space for the general symmetric multi-marginal Kantorovich optimal transport problem on finite state spaces which reduces the number of unknowns from $\tbinom{N+\ell-1}{\ell-1}$ to $\ell\cdot(N+1)$, where $\ell$ is the number of marginal states and $N$ the number of marginals. The new ansatz space is a careful low-dimensional enlargement of the Monge class, which corresponds to $\ell\cdot(N-1)$ unknowns, and cures the insufficiency of the Monge ansatz, i.e. we show that the Kantorovich problem always admits a minimizer in the enlarged class, for arbitrary cost functions…
We exhibit a surprising relationship between elliptic gradient systems of PDEs, multi-marginal Monge-Kantorovich optimal transport problem, and multivariable Hardy-Littlewood inequalities. We show that the notion of an orientable elliptic system, conjectured in [6] to imply that (in low dimensions) solutions with certain monotonicity properties are essentially 1-dimensional, is equivalent to the definition of a compatible cost function, known to imply uniqueness and structural results for optimal measures to certain Monge-Kantorovich problems [11]. Orientable nonlinearities and compatible cost…
We establish a Kantorovich duality for the pseudometric $\mathcal{E}_\hbar$ introduced in [F. Golse, T. Paul, Arch. Rational Mech. Anal. 223 (2017), 57--94], obtained from the usual Monge-Kantorovich distance $d_{MK,2}$ between classical densities by quantization of one of the two densities involved. We show several type of inequalities comparing $d_{MK,2}$, $\mathcal{E}_\hbar$ and $MK_\hbar$, a full quantum analogue of $d_{MK,2}$ introduced in [F. Golse, C. Mouhot, T. Paul, Commun. Math. Phys. 343 (2016), 165--205], including an up to $\hbar$ triangle inequality for $MK_\hbar$. Finally, we sh…
In this work we study a modification of the Monge-Kantorovich problem taking into account path dependence and interaction effects between particles. We prove existence of solutions under mild conditions on the data, and after imposing stronger conditions, we characterize the minimizers by relating them to an auxiliary Monge-Kantorovich problem of the more standard kind. With this notion of how particles interact and travel along paths, we produce a dual problem. The main novelty here is to incorporate an interaction effect to the optimal path transport problem. This covers for instance, $N$-bo…
The aim of this note is to show that Alexandrov solutions of the Monge-Ampere equation, with right hand side bounded away from zero and infinity, converge strongly in $W^{2,1}_{loc}$ if their right hand side converge strongly in $L^1_{loc}$. As a corollary we deduce strong $W^{1,1}_{loc}$ stability of optimal transport maps.
In this paper, Monge-Kantorovich problem is considered in the infinite dimension on an abstract Wiener space $(W, H,μ)$, where $H$ is Cameron-Martin space and $μ$ is the Gaussian measure. We study the regularity of optimal transport maps with a quadratic cost function assuming that both initial and target measures have a strictly positive Radon-Nikodym density with respect to $μ$. Under conditions on the density functions, the forward and backward transport maps can be written in terms of Sobolev derivative of so-called Monge-Brenier maps, or Monge potentials. We show Sobolev regularity of the…
We prove existence and uniqueness of solutions for a system of PDEs which describes the growth of a sandpile in a silos with flat bottom under the action of a vertical, measure source. The tools we use are a discrete approximation of the source and the duality theory for optimal transport (or Monge-Kantorovich) problems.
We introduce and study the class of linear transfers between probability distributions and the dual class of Kantorovich operators between function spaces. Linear transfers can be seen as an extension of convex lower semi-continuous energies on Wasserstein space, of cost minimizing mass transports, as well as many other couplings between probability measures to which Monge-Kantorovich theory does not readily apply. Basic examples include balayage of measures, martingale transports, optimal Skorokhod embeddings, and the weak mass transports of Talagrand, Marton, Gozlan and others. The class als…
The purpose of this note is to show that the solution to the Kantorovich optimal transportation problem is supported on a Lipschitz manifold, provided the cost is $C^{2}$ with non-singular mixed second derivative. We use this result to provide a simple proof that solutions to Monge's optimal transportation problem satisfy a change of variables equation almost everywhere.
Let (X,L) be a (semi-) polarized complex projective variety and T a real torus acting holomorphically on X with moment polytope P. Given a probability density g on P we introduce a new type of Monge-Ampere measure on X, defined for singular T-invariant metrics on the line bundle L, generalizing the ordinary Monge-Ampere of global pluripotential theory, which corresponds to the case when T is trivial (or g=1). In the opposite extreme case when T has maximal rank, i.e. (X,L,T) is a toric variety, the solution of the corresponding Monge-Ampere equation with right hand side μcorresponds to the con…
We discuss several geometric PDEs and their relationship with Hydrodynamics and classical Electrodynamics. We start from the Euler equations of ideal incompressible fluids that, geometrically speaking, describe geodesics on groups of measure preserving maps with respect to the $L^2$ metric. Then, we introduce a geometric approximation of the Euler equation, which involves the Monge-Ampère equation and the Monge-Kantorovich optimal transportation theory. This equation can be interpreted as a fully nonlinear correction of the Vlasov-Poisson system that describes the motion of electrons in a unif…
We consider a system of PDEs of Monge-Kantorovich type that, in the isotropic case, describes the stationary configurations of two-layers models in granular matter theory with a general source and a general boundary data. We propose a new weak formulation which is consistent with the physical model and permits us to prove existence and uniqueness results.
We study solutions to the multi-marginal Monge-Kantorovich problem which are concentrated on several graphs over the first marginal. We first present two general conditions on the cost function which ensure, respectively, that any solution must concentrate on either finitely many or countably many graphs. We show that local differential conditions on the cost, known to imply local $d$-rectifiability of the solution, are sufficient to imply a local version of the first of our conditions. We exhibit two examples of cost functions satisfying our conditions, including the Coulomb cost from density…
In this series of lectures we introduce the Monge-Kantorovich problem of optimally transporting one distribution of mass onto another, where optimality is measured against a cost function c(x,y). Connections to geometry, inequalities, and partial differential equations will be discussed, focusing in particular on recent developments in the regularity theory for Monge-Ampere type equations. An application to microeconomics will also be described, which amounts to finding the equilibrium price distribution for a monopolist marketing a multidimensional line of products to a population of anonymou…
We prove a uniqueness result of solutions for a system of PDEs of Monge-Kantorovich type arising in problems of mass transfer theory. The results are obtained under very mild regularity assumptions both on the reference set $Ω\subset\mathbf{R}^n$, and on the (possibly asymmetric) norm defined in $Ω$. In the special case when $Ω$ is endowed with the Euclidean metric, our results provide a complete description of the stationary solutions to the tray table problem in granular matter theory.
We investigate the approximation of the Monge problem (minimizing \int\_$Ω$ |T (x) -- x| d$μ$(x) among the vector-valued maps T with prescribed image measure T \# $μ$) by adding a vanishing Dirichlet energy, namely $ε$ \int\_$Ω$ |DT |^2. We study the $Γ$-convergence as $ε$ $\rightarrow$ 0, proving a density result for Sobolev (or Lipschitz) transport maps in the class of transport plans. In a certain two-dimensional framework that we analyze in details, when no optimal plan is induced by an H ^1 map, we study the selected limit map, which is a new "special" Monge transport, possibly different …
Over the past five years, multi-marginal optimal transport, a generalization of the well known optimal transport problem of Monge and Kantorovich, has begun to attract considerable attention, due in part to a wide variety of emerging applications. Here, we survey this problem, addressing fundamental theoretical questions including the uniqueness and structure of solutions. The (partial) answers to these questions uncover a surprising divergence from the classical two marginal setting, and reflect a delicate dependence on the cost function. We go one to describe two applications of the multi-ma…
The Wasserstein distances $W_p$ ($p\geq 1$), defined in terms of solution to the Monge-Kantorovich problem, are known to be a useful tool to investigate transport equations. In particular, the Benamou-Brenier formula characterizes the square of the Wasserstein distance $W_2$ as the infimum of the kinetic energy, or action functional, of all vector fields moving one measure to the other. Another important property of the Wasserstein distances is the Kantorovich-Rubinstein duality stating the equality between the distance $W_1$ and the supremum of the integrals of Lipschitz continuous functions …
Some optimization or equilibrium problems involving somehow the concept of optimal transport are presented in these notes, mainly devoted to applications to economic and game theory settings. A variant model of transport, taking into account traffic congestion effects is the first topic, and it shows various links with Monge-Kantorovich theory and PDEs. Then, two models for urban planning are introduced. The last section is devoted to two problems from economics and their translation in the language of optimal transport.
We provide counterexamples to regularity of optimal maps in the classical Monge problem under various assumptions on the initial data. Our construction is based on a variant of the counterexample in \cite{LSW} to Lipschitz regularity of the monotone optimal map between smooth densities supported on convex domains.
