On nonexpansiveness of metric projection operators on Wasserstein spaces

Abstract

In this paper we investigate properties of metric projections onto specific closed and geodesically convex proper subsets of Wasserstein spaces $(\mathcal{P}_p(\mathbf{R}^d),W_p).$ When $d=1$, as $(\mathcal{P}_2(\mathbf{R}),W_2)$ is isometrically isomorphic to a flat space with a Hilbertian structure, the corresponding projection operators are expected to be nonexpansive. We give a direct proof of this fact, relying on intrinsic analysis, which also implies nonexpansiveness in certain special cases in higher dimensions. When $d>1$, we show the failure of this property in two regimes: when $p>1$ is either small enough or large enough. Finally, we prove some positive curvature properties of Wasserstein spaces $(\mathcal{P}_p(\mathbf{R}^d),W_p)$ when $d\ge 2$ and $p\in(1,+\infty)$ are arbitrary: we show that Wasserstein spaces are nowhere locally Busemann NPC spaces, and they nowhere locally satisfy the so-called projection criterion. As a corollary of the former, they have nonnegative upper Alexandrov curvature, in a precise sense that we define here. In our analysis a particular subset of probability measures having densities uniformly bounded above by a given constant plays a special role.