Time-periodic branched transport

Abstract

We develop a new framework for branched transport between probability measures which are allowed to vary in time. This framework can be used to model problems where the underlying transportation network displays a branched structure, but the source and target mass distributions can change cyclically over time, such as road networks or circulatory systems. We introduce the notion of time-dependent transport paths along with associated energies and distances, and prove existence of transport paths whose energy achieves the distance. We also show the time-dependent transport yields a metric structure on subsets of appropriately defined measure-valued Sobolev spaces.