Continuity, curvature, and the general covariance of optimal transportation

Let M and \bar M be n-dimensional manifolds equipped with suitable Borel probability measures \rho and \bar\rho. Ma, Trudinger & Wang gave sufficient conditions on a transportation cost c \in C^4(M \times \bar M) to guarantee smoothness of the optimal map pushing \rho forward to \bar\rho; the necessity of these conditions was deduced by Loeper. The present manuscript shows the form of these conditions to be largely dictated by the covariance of the question; it expresses them via non-negativity of the sectional curvature of certain null-planes in a novel but natural pseudo-Riemannian geometry which the cost c induces on the product space M \times \bar M. H\"older continuity of optimal maps was established for rougher mass distributions by Loeper, still relying on a key result of Trudinger & Wang which required certain structure on the domains and the cost. We go on to develop this theory for mass distributions on differentiable manifolds -- recovering Loeper's Riemannian examples such as the round sphere as particular cases -- give a direct proof of the key result mentioned above, and revise Loeper's H\"older continuity argument to make it logically independent of all earlier works, while extending it to less restricted geometries and cost functions even for subdomains M and \bar M of R^n. We also give new examples of geometries satisfying the hypotheses -- obtained using submersions and tensor products -- and some connections to spacelike Lagrangian submanifolds in symplectic geometry.Comment: 43 pages, 1 figur

A glimpse into the differential topology and geometry of optimal transport

This note exposes the differential topology and geometry underlying some of the basic phenomena of optimal transportation. It surveys basic questions concerning Monge maps and Kantorovich measures: existence and regularity of the former, uniqueness of the latter, and estimates for the dimension of its support, as well as the associated linear programming duality. It shows the answers to these questions concern the differential geometry and topology of the chosen transportation cost. It also establishes new connections --- some heuristic and others rigorous --- based on the properties of the cross-difference of this cost, and its Taylor expansion at the diagonal.Comment: 27 page

On the second boundary value problem for Monge-Ampere type equations and geometric optics

In this paper, we prove the existence of classical solutions to second boundary value prob- lems for generated prescribed Jacobian equations, as recently developed by the second author, thereby obtaining extensions of classical solvability of optimal transportation problems to problems arising in near field geometric optics. Our results depend in particular on a priori second derivative estimates recently established by the authors under weak co-dimension one convexity hypotheses on the associated matrix functions with respect to the gradient variables, (A3w). We also avoid domain deformations by using the convexity theory of generating functions to construct unique initial solutions for our homotopy family, thereby enabling application of the degree theory for nonlinear oblique boundary value problems.Comment: Final version to appear in Archive for Rational Mechanics and Analysi