Generic uniqueness of optimal transportation networks (Q6050102)

The authors prove that the optimal branched transportation problem admits \textit{generically} a unique minimizer, where generically refers to a generic boundary in the sense of Baire categories. We recall that the optimal branched transportation problem with boundary \(b\) consists in the minimization of the \(\alpha\)-mass \[ \mathbb{M}^{\alpha}(T)=\int_{E}|\theta|^{\alpha}d\mathcal{H}^1\ , \qquad \alpha\in (0,1), \] among all the rectifiable \(1\)-currents \(T\) with boundary \(\partial T=b\). Here a rectifiable \(1\)-current \(T\) is identified as \(T=\overrightarrow{T}\theta\mathcal{H}^1\llcorner_E\) where \(E\) is a \(1\)-rectifiable set, \(\theta\in L^1(\mathcal{H}^1\llcorner_E)\) and \(\overrightarrow{T}\) is a unit vector field spanning the tangent space \(\mathrm{Tan}(E, x)\) at \(\mathcal{H}^1\)-a.e. \(x\in E\). Easy counterexamples show that the uniqueness cannot be expected for \textit{every} boundary, motivating the result.