Distributional barycenter problem through data-driven flows

Esteban Tabak, Giulio Trigila, Wenjun Zhao

Abstract: A new method is proposed for the solution of the data-driven optimal transport barycenter problem and of the more general distributional barycenter problem that the article introduces. The method improves on previous approaches based on adversarial games, by slaving the discriminator to the generator, minimizing the need for parameterizations and by allowing the adoption of general cost functions. It is applied to numerical examples, which include analyzing the MNIST data set with a new cost function that penalizes non-isometric maps.