Monge Ampère gravity: from the large deviation principle to cosmological simulations through optimal transport

We study Monge-Ampère gravity (MAG) as an effective theory of cosmological structure formation through optimal transport theory. MAG is based on the Monge-Ampère equation, a nonlinear version of the Poisson equation, that relates the Hessian determinant of the potential to the density field. We explain how MAG emerges from a conditioned system of independent and indistinguishable Brownian particles, through the large deviation principle, in the continuum limit. To numerically explore this highly non-linear theory, we develop a novel N-body simulation method based on semi-discrete optimal transport. Our results obtained from the very first N-body simulation of Monge-Ampère gravity with over 100 millions particles show that on large scales, Monge-Ampère gravity is similar to the Newtonian gravity but favours the formation of anisotropic structures such as filaments. At small scales, MAG has a weaker clustering and is screened in high-density regions. Although here we study the Monge-Ampère gravity as an effective rather than a fundamental theory, our novel highly-performant optimal transport algorithm can be used to run high-resolution simulations of a large class of modified theories of gravity, such as Galileons, in which the equations of motion are second-order and of Monge-Ampère type.