Optimal density evolution with congestion: $L^\infty$ bounds via flow interchange techniques and applications to variational Mean Field Games

created by santambro on 31 Mar 2017
modified by lavenant on 02 Aug 2019

[BibTeX]

Accepted Paper

Inserted: 31 mar 2017
Last Updated: 2 aug 2019

Journal: Communications in Partial Differential Equations
Year: 2017

Abstract:

We consider minimization problems for curves of measure, with kinetic and potential energy and a congestion penalization, as in the functionals that appear in Mean Field Games with a variational structure. We prove $L^\infty$ regularity results for the optimal density, which can be applied to the rigorous derivations of equilibrium conditions at the level of each agent's trajectory, via time-discretization arguments, displacement convexity, and suitable Moser iterations. Similar $L^\infty$ results have already been found by P.-L. Lions in his course on Mean Field Games, using a proof based on the use of a (very degenerate) elliptic equation on the dual potential (the value function) $\varphi$, in the case where the initial and final density were prescribed (planning problem). Here the strategy is highly different, and allows for instance to prove local-in-time estimates without assumptions on the initial and final data, and to insert a potential in the dynamics.