Journal article icon

Journal article

Nonlocal-interaction equation on graphs: Gradient flow structure and continuum limit

Abstract:
We consider dynamics driven by interaction energies on graphs. We introduce graph analogues of the continuum nonlocal-interaction equation and interpret them as gradient flows with respect to a graph Wasserstein distance. The particular Wasserstein distance we consider arises from the graph analogue of the Benamou–Brenier formulation where the graph continuity equation uses an upwind interpolation to define the density along the edges. While this approach has both theoretical and computational advantages, the resulting distance is only a quasi-metric. We investigate this quasi-metric both on graphs and on more general structures where the set of “vertices” is an arbitrary positive measure. We call the resulting gradient flow of the nonlocal-interaction energy the nonlocal nonlocal-interaction equation (NL2IE). We develop the existence theory for the solutions of the NL2IE as curves of maximal slope with respect to the upwind Wasserstein quasi-metric. Furthermore, we show that the solutions of the NL2IE on graphs converge as the empirical measures of the set of vertices converge weakly, which establishes a valuable discrete-to-continuum convergence result.
Publication status:
Published
Peer review status:
Peer reviewed

Actions

Access Document

Publisher copy:
10.1007/s00205-021-01631-w

Authors

More by this author
Institution:
University of Oxford
Division:
MPLS
Department:
Mathematical Institute
Role:
Author
ORCID:
0000-0002-4230-4729


Publisher:
Springer
Journal:
Archive for Rational Mechanics and Analysis More from this journal
Volume:
240
Issue:
2
Pages:
699-760
Publication date:
2021-03-15
Acceptance date:
2021-01-29
DOI:
EISSN:
1432-0673
ISSN:
0003-9527


Language:
English
Keywords:
Pubs id:
1262765
Local pid:
pubs:1262765
Deposit date:
2022-06-09
ARK identifier:

Terms of use


Views and Downloads






If you are the owner of this record, you can report an update to it here: Report update to this record

TO TOP