When Optimal Transport Meets Information Geometry

Abstract

Information geometry and optimal transport are two distinct geometric frameworks for modeling families of probability measures. During the recent years, there has been a surge of research endeavors that cut across these two areas and explore their links and interactions. This paper is intended to provide an (incomplete) survey of these works, including entropy-regularized transport, divergence functions arising from $c$-duality, density manifolds and transport information geometry, the para-Kähler and Kähler geometries underlying optimal transport and the regularity theory for its solutions. Some outstanding questions that would be of interest to audience of both these two disciplines are posed. Our piece also serves as an introduction to the Special Issue on Optimal Transport of the journal Information Geometry.