Applications of Optimal Transportation in the Natural Sciences

Abstract

Concepts and methods from the mathematical theory of optimal transportation have reached significant importance in various fields of the natural sciences. The view on classical problems from a “transport perspective” has lead to the development of powerful problem-adapted mathematical tools, and sometimes to a novel geometric understanding of the matter. The natural sciences, in turn, are the most important source of ideas for the further development of the optimal transport theory, and are a driving force for the design of efficient and reliable numerical methods to approximate Wasserstein distances and the like.

The presentations and discussions in this workshop have been centered around recent analytical results and numerical methods in the field of optimal transportation that have been motivated by specific applications in statistical physics, quantum mechanics, and chemistry.