OpenAI reports nonattainment of the three-marginal Coulomb Monge minimum

There is a smooth compactly supported probability density on ℝ³, with smooth compactly supported square root, whose finite three-marginal Coulomb Kantorovich minimum is attained by a coupling but by no pair of measure-preserving Borel maps; nevertheless the Monge and Kantorovich infima are equal.

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OpenAI reports nonattainment of the three-marginal Coulomb Monge minimum

  • Mathematics

There is a smooth compactly supported probability density on ℝ³, with smooth compactly supported square root, whose finite three-marginal Coulomb Kantorovich minimum is attained by a coupling but by no pair of measure-preserving Borel maps; nevertheless the Monge and Kantorovich infima are equal.

AI involvementAI-led
ImportanceMajor
Technical verificationFormal (Lean 4)
Human understandingFew

Understanding the problem

Read the background

There is a smooth compactly supported probability density on ℝ³, with smooth compactly supported square root, whose finite three-marginal Coulomb Kantorovich minimum is attained by a coupling but by no pair of measure-preserving Borel maps; nevertheless the Monge and Kantorovich infima are equal.

Why it matters

If correct, gives a smooth physical-density counterexample to attainment of the Coulomb co-motion ansatz.

What counts as progress

Must a three-marginal Coulomb optimum for a smooth identical density be attained by measure-preserving maps?

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