On isometric embeddings of Wasserstein spaces – the discrete case

Abstract

The aim of this short paper is to offer a complete characterization of all (not necessarily surjective) isometric embeddings of the Wasserstein space Wp(X), where X is a countable discrete metric space and 0<p<∞ is any parameter value. Roughly speaking, we will prove that any isometric embedding can be described by a special kind of X×(0,1]-indexed family of nonnegative finite measures. Our result implies that a typical non-surjective isometric embedding of Wp(X) splits mass and does not preserve the shape of measures. In order to stress that the lack of surjectivity is what makes things challenging, we will prove alternatively that Wp(X) is isometrically rigid for all 0<p<∞.