Nonlinear diffusion: Geodesic Convexity is equivalent to Wasserstein Contraction

It is well known that nonlinear diffusion equations can be interpreted as a gradient flow in the space of probability measures equipped with the Euclidean Wasserstein distance. Under suitable convexity conditions on the nonlinearity, due to R. J. McCann, the associated entropy is geodesically convex, which implies a contraction type property between all solutions with respect to this distance. In this note, we give a simple straightforward proof of the equivalence between this contraction type property and this convexity condition, without even resorting to the entropy and the gradient flow structure.

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Field Value
Source https://hal.science/hal-00859401
Author Bolley, François, Carrillo, José, A.
Maintainer CCSD
Last Updated May 6, 2026, 17:21 (UTC)
Created May 6, 2026, 17:21 (UTC)
Identifier hal-00859401
Language en
Rights https://about.hal.science/hal-authorisation-v1/
contributor CEntre de REcherches en MAthématiques de la DEcision (CEREMADE) ; Université Paris Dauphine-PSL ; Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
creator Bolley, François
date 2013-05-06T00:00:00
harvest_object_id 6504c83a-16d8-483e-bab9-0be5bdce1c3b
harvest_source_id 3374d638-d20b-4672-ba96-a23232d55657
harvest_source_title test moissonnage SELUNE
metadata_modified 2025-06-13T00:00:00
relation info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/arxiv/1309.1932
set_spec type:UNDEFINED