

Preprint 41/1999
Polar factorization of maps on Riemannian manifolds
Robert J. McCann
Contact the author: Please use for correspondence this email.
Submission date: 02. Jun. 1999
Pages: 18
published in: Geometric and functional analysis, 11 (2001) 3, p. 589-608
DOI number (of the published article): 10.1007/PL00001679
Bibtex
Download full preprint: PDF (381 kB), PS ziped (169 kB)
Abstract:
Let (M,g) be a connected compact manifold, C3 smooth and without boundary, equipped with a Riemannian distance d(x,y). If a Borel mapping of M to itself never maps positive volume into zero volume, we show it factors uniquely a.e. into the composition of a map t(x) = expx[ - grad f(x) ] and a volume-preserving map u, where f is a real-valued function on M given by an infimal convolution with c(x,y) = d2 /2. Like Brenier's factorization which it generalizes from Euclidean space, this non-linear decomposition can be linearized around the identity to yield the Hodge decomposition of vector fields.
The results are obtained by solving a Riemannian version of the Monge- Kantorovich problem, which means minimizing the expected value of the cost c(x,y) for transporting one L1 distribution g of mass throughout M onto another. A companion article extends this solution to strictly convex or concave cost functions c(x,y) which increase with the Riemannian distance on a non-compact manifold.
Robert J. McCann
Department of Mathematics
University of Toronto
Toronto Ontario Canada M5S 3G3
mccann@math.toronto.edu