Li-Yau-Hamilton Inequality on the JKO Scheme for the Granular-Medium Equation

Abstract

We establish a version of the Li--Yau--Hamilton inequality for the Granular-Medium equation on the torus, both at the PDE level and for its time-discrete approximation given by the JKO scheme. We then apply this estimate to derive further quantitative results for the continuous and discrete JKO flows, including Lipschitz and $L^\infty$ bounds, as well as a quantitative Harnack inequality. Finally, we use the regularity provided by this estimate to show that the JKO scheme for the Fokker--Planck equation converges in $L^2_{\mathrm{loc}}((0,+\infty); H^2(\mathbb{T}^d))$.