Continuous Dual Maximizers for Fixed-Reference Entropy-Regularized Wasserstein Barycenters
We study the fixed-reference entropy-regularized Wasserstein barycenter problem, in which a probability measure $η$ on the barycenter space is chosen before optimization and the $i$th transport plan is regularized relative to $ν_i\otimesη$. Earlier work established a dual formulation for this model and equality between the primal and dual optimal values. However, equality of values does not by itself guarantee that the dual supremum is achieved. Our main result shows that, on compact metric spaces with continuous transport costs, the dual problem admits maximizing potentials in the original class of continuous functions. For completeness, we also establish existence and uniqueness of the optimal tuple of transport plans and of the barycenter. The maximizing potentials recover the optimal plans through exponential primal--dual relations and give an explicit density of the barycenter with respect to $η$. This density is continuous and strictly positive. We further show that the potentials inherit regularity from the costs and are unique up to the natural additive gauge transformations. These results strengthen the known value-duality theory and provide a complete continuous primal--dual description of the fixed-reference regularized barycenter problem.