Empirical optimal transport potentials: fast rates and a functional central limit theorem

Abstract

Optimal transport potentials are fundamental objects in statistics, economics, and machine learning: their gradients generate optimal transport maps, while the potentials themselves act as location-dependent dual prices and sensitivity variables. We study the estimation of the quadratic optimal transport potential when a fixed absolutely continuous reference distribution $μ$ is transported to an unknown distribution $ν$, accessed to via its empirical measure. Our main ingredient is a stability inequality that controls the $L^1(μ)$ distance, modulo additive constants, between a strongly convex potential $φ$ and a convex potential $\widetildeφ$ by a weak dual norm of $(\nabla\widetildeφ)_\#μ-(\nablaφ)_\#μ,$ together with a second-order Wasserstein remainder of logarithmic type. This separation between the leading empirical-process term and the Wasserstein remainder yields faster convergence for potentials than for the corresponding transport maps. Under smoothness and uniform convexity assumptions, the exact semidiscrete Brenier potential converges in $L^1(μ)$ at rate $n^{-1/2}$ for $d\leq3$, at rate $n^{-1/2}(\log n)^{5/2}$ for $d=4$, and at rate $n^{-2/d}(\log n)^{(d+2)/d}$ for $d\geq5$. The polynomial exponents are sharp. In dimensions $d\leq3$, we further establish a nondegenerate function-space central limit theorem and prove consistency of the nonparametric bootstrap. These results yield joint root-$n$ inference for every fixed finite collection of normalization-invariant weighted contrasts of the potential, including regional shadow premia in reference-based risk problems. Finally, we prove matching upper and lower bounds of order $\varepsilon\log(1/\varepsilon)$ for the normalization-invariant sum of the entropic dual potentials.