Characterisation of optimal solutions to second-order Beckmann problem through bimartingale couplings and leaf decompositions

Abstract

We completely characterise the optimal solutions for the three-marginal optimal transport problem - introduced in [K. Bolbotowski, G. Bouchitt\'e, Kantorovich-Rubinstein duality theory for the Hessian, 2024, preprint], and whose relaxation is the second-order Beckmann problem - for arbitrary pairs $\mu,\nu\in\mathcal{P}_2(\mathbb{R}^n)$ of absolutely continuous measures with common barycentre such that there exists an optimal plan with absolutely continuous third marginal. In our work, we define the concept of bimartingale couplings for a pair of measures and establish several equivalent conditions that ensure such couplings exist. One of these conditions is that the pair is ordered according to the convex-concave order, thereby generalising the classical Strassen theorem. Another equivalent condition is that the dual problem associated with the second-order Beckmann problem attains its optimum at a $\mathcal{C}^{1,1}(\mathbb{R}^n)$ function with isometric derivative. We prove that the problem for $\mu,\nu$ completely decomposes into a collection of simpler problems on the leaves of the $1$-Lipschitz derivative $Du$ of an optimal solution $u\in\mathcal{C}^{1,1}(\mathbb{R}^n)$ for the dual problem. On each such, leaf the solution is expressed in terms of bimartingale couplings between conditional measures of $\mu,\nu$, where the conditioning is defined relative to the foliation induced by $Du$.