A GPM-based algorithm for solving regularized Wasserstein barycenter problems in some spaces of probability measures

Abstract

In this paper, we focus on the analysis of the regularized Wasserstein barycenter problem. We provide uniqueness and a characterization of the barycenter for two important classes of probability measures: (i) Gaussian distributions and (ii) $q$-Gaussian distributions; each regularized by a particular entropy functional. We propose an algorithm based on gradient projection method in the space of matrices in order to compute these regularized barycenters. We also consider a general class of $\varphi$-exponential measures, for which only the non-regularized barycenter is studied. Finally, we numerically show the influence of parameters and stability of the algorithm under small perturbation of data.