Optimal transport maps, majorization, and log-subharmonic measures

Caffarelli’s contraction theorem bounds the derivative of the optimal transport map between a log-convex measure and a strongly log-concave measure. We show that an analogous phenomenon holds on the level of the trace: the trace of the derivative of the optimal transport map between a log-subharmonic measure and a strongly log-concave measure is bounded. We show that this trace bound has a number of consequences pertaining to volume-contracting transport maps, majorization and its monotonicity along Wasserstein geodesics, growth estimates of log-subharmonic functions, the Wehrl conjecture for Glauber states, and two-dimensional Coulomb gases. We also discuss volume-contraction properties for the Kim–Milman transport map.