Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 November 2019
We show that, if $b\in L^{1}(0,T;L_{\operatorname{loc}}^{1}(\mathbb{R}))$ has a spatial derivative in the John–Nirenberg space $\operatorname{BMO}(\mathbb{R})$, then it generates a unique flow $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}(t,\cdot )$ which has an $A_{\infty }(\mathbb{R})$ density for each time $t\in [0,T]$. Our condition on the map $b$ is not only optimal but also produces a sharp quantitative estimate for the density. As a killer application we achieve the well-posedness for a Cauchy problem of the transport equation in $\operatorname{BMO}(\mathbb{R})$.