On the structure of optimal free Dirichlet regions in mass transportation problems

For a compactly supported probability measure $\mu$ on the $d$-dimensional space $\mathbb{R}^d$, the average distance problem asks us to minimize the average distance functional over all compact, connected, $\Sigma \subseteq \mathbb{R}^d$ satisfying the Hausdorff $1$-measure constraint $\mathcal{H}^1(\Sigma) \leq \ell$.

This problem was first introduced in 2002 by Buttazzo, Oudet, and Stepanov to study optimal transport problems with free regions on which the transport cost vanishes, and has undergone a considerable amount of research since.

Most recently, Kobayashi, Kim, and the author studied the structure of these regions using the barycentre field, a tool for studying the average distance functional introduced previously by Kobayashi, Hayase, and Kim.

In this paper, we build upon this work to prove in much greater generality a topological description of minimizers of the average distance problem conjectured by Buttazzo, Oudet, and Stepanov.

In particular, we prove this conjecture in all dimensions in the case originally studied by these authors.