Necessary and sufficient conditions for continuity of optimal transport maps on Riemannian manifolds (Q765681)

Let \(M\) be a smooth compact connected Riemannian manifold of dimension \(n\geq 2\), let \(\mu,\nu\) be two probability measures on \(M\) which are absolutely continuous with respect to the volume measure on \(M\), with densities bounded below and above by positive constants, and \(T:M\to M\) the optimal transport map which optimizes the cost functional \(\int_M \frac12 \operatorname{dist}(x, Tx)^2 d\mu(x)\) assuming that \(\nu\) is the image measure of \(\mu\). It is known [\textit{R. J. McCann}, Geom. Funct. Anal. 11, No. 3, 589--608 (2001; Zbl 1011.58009)] that this problem has a unique solution \(T\) defined up to a \(\mu\) set of measure zero. In this paper (see also [\textit{G. Loeper} and \textit{C. Villani}, Duke Math. J. 151, No. 3, 431--485 (2010; Zbl 1192.53041)]), the authors study the \textit{transport continuity property}, or (TCP) for short, that is, the study of necessary and sufficient conditions to establish that the map \(T\) is continuous up to modification on a set of zero volume. The manifold \(M\) is said to satisfy (CI) if for any \(x\in M\) the injectivity domain of the exponential map \(\exp_x\) is convex; and \(M\) is said to satisfy (MTW) if for given \(x,y=\exp_x(v)\in M\) (\(v\) is in the injectivity domain of \(\exp_x\)), the second-order differential \[ \frac{d^2}{ds^2}\frac{d^2}{dt^2} \operatorname{dist}\left(\exp_x(t\xi),\exp_x(v+s\eta)\right)^2 \] evaluated at \(s=t=0\) is non-positive, assuming \(\xi,\eta\in T_xM\) are orthogonal. The acronym (MTW) responds to \textit{X. N. Ma} and \textit{N. S. Trudinger} and \textit{X. J. Wang}, who introduced these type of conditions in [Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 177, No. 2, 151--183 (2005; Zbl 1072.49035)]. The main results of the paper follow: a) If \(M\) satisfies (TCP), then (CI) and (MTW) hold; b) If \(M\) satisfies \(\mathrm{CI}^+\) and \(\mathrm{MTW}^+\), then (TCP) holds -- the plus symbol indicates strict convexity and nondegeneracy respectively. The authors also prove that if \(n=2\), then the strict conditions can be removed and then (TCP) holds \(\Leftrightarrow\) [(CI) and (MTW)] hold.