Quantitative Uniqueness of Kantorovich Potentials

This paper studies the uniqueness of solutions to the dual optimal transport problem, both qualitatively and quantitatively (bounds on the diameter of the set of optimisers). On the qualitative side, we prove that when one marginal measure’s support is rectifiably connected (path-connected by rectifiable paths), the optimal dual potentials are unique up to a constant. This represents the first uniqueness result applicable even when both marginal measures are concentrated on lower-dimensional subsets of the ambient space, and also applies in cases where optimal potentials are nowhere differentiable on the supports of the marginals. On the quantitative side, we control the diameter of the set of optimal dual potentials by the Hausdorff distance between the support of one of the marginal measures and a regular connected set. In this way, we quantify the extent to which optimisers are almost unique when the support of one marginal measure is almost connected. This is a consequence of a novel characterisation of the set of optimal dual potentials as the intersection of an explicit family of half-spaces.