Pushforward dynamics on Wasserstein spaces and measure rigidity
Abstract
For an endomorphism ϕ of a closed Riemannian manifold M, we study the pushforward action ϕ∗ on the Wasserstein space 𝒫(M) at a measure μ0 preserved by ϕ. We show that if ϕ is a C2 covering map and μ0 has positive C1 density, then ϕ∗ is Gâteaux differentiable at μ0 along tangent directions, with derivative given by the transfer operator of ϕ acting on vector fields, followed by orthogonal projection onto the tangent space. The derivative is the adjoint of the Koopman operator restricted to the tangent space, and its fixed space consists of the directions in which μ0 can be deformed while preserving invariance to first order. For appropriate pairs of endomorphisms of 𝕋d, we compute the intersection of their fixed spaces, show that it contains an infinite family of linearly independent continuous vector fields, and construct, for every n, an embedded n-dimensional family of measures that are nearly invariant under both endomorphisms. First-order rigidity therefore fails in every dimension. In particular, rigidity phenomena such as higher-dimensional analogues of the Furstenberg conjecture, if true, are genuinely nonlinear.
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BibTeX
@misc{finamore2026pushforward,
title = {{Pushforward dynamics on Wasserstein spaces and measure rigidity}},
author = {Douglas Finamore and André Magalhães de Sá Gomes and Christian S. Rodrigues},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.00451},
eprint = {2609.00451},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.00451},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Pushforward dynamics on Wasserstein spaces and measure rigidity
AU - Douglas Finamore
AU - André Magalhães de Sá Gomes
AU - Christian S. Rodrigues
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/01
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.00451
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.00451
AB - For an endomorphism ϕ of a closed Riemannian manifold M, we study the pushforward action ϕ_∗ on the Wasserstein space 𝒫(M) at a measure μ_0 preserved by ϕ. We show that if ϕ is a C^2 covering map and μ_0 has positive C^1 density, then ϕ_∗ is Gâteaux differentiable at μ_0 along tangent directions, with derivative given by the transfer operator of ϕ acting on vector fields, followed by orthogonal projection onto the tangent space. The derivative is the adjoint of the Koopman operator restricted to the tangent space, and its fixed space consists of the directions in which μ_0 can be deformed while preserving invariance to first order. For appropriate pairs of endomorphisms of 𝕋^d, we compute the intersection of their fixed spaces, show that it contains an infinite family of linearly independent continuous vector fields, and construct, for every n, an embedded n-dimensional family of measures that are nearly invariant under both endomorphisms. First-order rigidity therefore fails in every dimension. In particular, rigidity phenomena such as higher-dimensional analogues of the Furstenberg conjecture, if true, are genuinely nonlinear.
ER -