A Mass Minimizing Flow for Real-Valued Flat Chains with Applications to Transport Networks

dc.contributor.advisorHardt, Roberten_US
dc.creatorDownes, Carol Annen_US
dc.date.accessioned2017-08-02T14:52:35Zen_US
dc.date.available2017-08-02T14:52:35Zen_US
dc.date.created2017-05en_US
dc.date.issued2017-04-21en_US
dc.date.submittedMay 2017en_US
dc.date.updated2017-08-02T14:52:36Zen_US
dc.description.abstractAn oriented transportation network can be modeled by a 1-dimensional chain whose boundary is the difference between the demand and supply distributions, represented by weighted sums of point masses. To accommodate efficiencies of scale into the model, one uses a suitable Mα norm for transportation cost. One then finds that the minimal cost network has a branching structure since the norm favors higher multiplicity edges, representing shared transport. In this thesis, we construct a continuous flow that evolves some initial such network to reduce transport cost without altering its supply and demand distributions. Instead of limiting our scope to transport networks, we construct this M^α mass reducing flow for real-valued flat chains by finding a real current of locally finite mass with the property that its restrictions are flat chains; the slices of such a restriction dictate the flow. Keeping the boundary fixed, this flow reduces the M^α mass of the initial chain and is Lipschitz continuous under the flat-α norm. To complete the thesis, we apply this flow to transportation networks, showing that the flow indeed evolves branching transport networks to be more cost efficient.en_US
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen_US
dc.identifier.citationDownes, Carol Ann. "A Mass Minimizing Flow for Real-Valued Flat Chains with Applications to Transport Networks." (2017) Diss., Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/96173">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/96173</a>.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/96173en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.rightsCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.en_US
dc.subjectGeometric Measure Theoryen_US
dc.subjectGeometric Flowsen_US
dc.subjectOptimal Transport Theoryen_US
dc.titleA Mass Minimizing Flow for Real-Valued Flat Chains with Applications to Transport Networksen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
dc.type.materialTexten_US
thesis.degree.departmentMathematicsen_US
thesis.degree.disciplineNatural Sciencesen_US
thesis.degree.grantorRice Universityen_US
thesis.degree.levelDoctoralen_US
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophyen_US
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