On the Unique Recovery of Transport Maps and Vector Fields from Finite Measure-Valued Data

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Main Authors: Botvinick-Greenhouse, Jonah, Yang, Yunan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Botvinick-Greenhouse, Jonah
Yang, Yunan
author_facet Botvinick-Greenhouse, Jonah
Yang, Yunan
contents We establish guarantees for the unique recovery of vector fields and transport maps from finite measure-valued data, yielding new insights into generative models, data-driven dynamical systems, and PDE inverse problems. In particular, we provide general conditions under which a diffeomorphism can be uniquely identified from its pushforward action on finitely many densities, i.e., when the data $\{(ρ_j,f_\#ρ_j)\}_{j=1}^m$ uniquely determines $f$. As a corollary, we introduce a new metric which compares diffeomorphisms by measuring the discrepancy between finitely many pushforward densities in the space of probability measures. We also prove analogous results in an infinitesimal setting, where derivatives of the densities along a smooth vector field are observed, i.e., when $\{(ρ_j,\text{div} (ρ_j v))\}_{j=1}^m$ uniquely determines $v$. Our analysis makes use of the Whitney and Takens embedding theorems, which provide estimates on the required number of densities $m$, depending only on the intrinsic dimension of the problem. We additionally interpret our results through the lens of Perron--Frobenius and Koopman operators and demonstrate how our techniques lead to new guarantees for the well-posedness of certain PDE inverse problems related to continuity, advection, Fokker--Planck, and advection-diffusion-reaction equations. Finally, we present illustrative numerical experiments demonstrating the unique identification of transport maps from finitely many pushforward densities, and of vector fields from finitely many weighted divergence observations.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_07671
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle On the Unique Recovery of Transport Maps and Vector Fields from Finite Measure-Valued Data
Botvinick-Greenhouse, Jonah
Yang, Yunan
Machine Learning
Numerical Analysis
Dynamical Systems
We establish guarantees for the unique recovery of vector fields and transport maps from finite measure-valued data, yielding new insights into generative models, data-driven dynamical systems, and PDE inverse problems. In particular, we provide general conditions under which a diffeomorphism can be uniquely identified from its pushforward action on finitely many densities, i.e., when the data $\{(ρ_j,f_\#ρ_j)\}_{j=1}^m$ uniquely determines $f$. As a corollary, we introduce a new metric which compares diffeomorphisms by measuring the discrepancy between finitely many pushforward densities in the space of probability measures. We also prove analogous results in an infinitesimal setting, where derivatives of the densities along a smooth vector field are observed, i.e., when $\{(ρ_j,\text{div} (ρ_j v))\}_{j=1}^m$ uniquely determines $v$. Our analysis makes use of the Whitney and Takens embedding theorems, which provide estimates on the required number of densities $m$, depending only on the intrinsic dimension of the problem. We additionally interpret our results through the lens of Perron--Frobenius and Koopman operators and demonstrate how our techniques lead to new guarantees for the well-posedness of certain PDE inverse problems related to continuity, advection, Fokker--Planck, and advection-diffusion-reaction equations. Finally, we present illustrative numerical experiments demonstrating the unique identification of transport maps from finitely many pushforward densities, and of vector fields from finitely many weighted divergence observations.
title On the Unique Recovery of Transport Maps and Vector Fields from Finite Measure-Valued Data
topic Machine Learning
Numerical Analysis
Dynamical Systems
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.07671