arXiv Machine Learning

Vanilla SGD with Momentum Survives Heavy-Tailed Noise: Convergence Analysis without Gradient Clipping or Normalization

arXiv:2607. 08104v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is a cornerstone of modern optimization.

arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 14

Almost Sure Convergence Analysis of Stochastic Gradient Methods with Clipping and Additive Noise

The paper proves that stochastic gradient descent with gradient clipping and additive Gaussian noise (SGD‑CN) converges almost surely under smoothness and bounded noise assumptions, given standard decaying step sizes. The analysis extends to momentum variants such as the stochastic heavy ball and Nesterov's accelerated gradient, showing that careful energy constructions yield similar guarantees. These results provide stronger theoretical foundations for understanding the pathwise behaviour of clipped stochastic gradient methods in both convex and nonconvex regimes.

By Amartya Mukherjee, Jun Liu
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 18

Adaptive Optimization via Momentum on Variance-Normalized Gradients

arXiv:2602. 10204v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: We introduce MVN-Grad (Momentum on Variance-Normalized Gradients), an Adam-style optimizer that improves stability and performance by combining two complementary ideas: variance-based normalization and momentum applied after normalization.

By Francisco Patitucci, Aryan Mokhtari
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 20

SHANG++: Robust Stochastic Acceleration under Multiplicative Noise

The paper introduces SHANG++—an accelerated stochastic gradient descent algorithm designed to be robust under multiplicative noise scaling (MNS). Building on a semi‑implicit discretization called SHANG, SHANG++ adds a damping correction that improves stability and convergence for both convex and strongly convex objectives. Experiments on convex problems and deep learning tasks, including a noise‑robust test on ResNet‑34, show that SHANG++ consistently outperforms existing accelerated methods with minimal parameter sensitivity.

By Yaxin Yu, Long Chen, Minfu Feng
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 28

A unified convergence theory for adaptive first-order methods in the nonconvex case, including AdaNorm, full and diagonal AdaGrad and Muon

The paper introduces a unified framework for first‑order optimization algorithms applied to nonconvex unconstrained problems. It incorporates adaptively preconditioned gradients and covers popular methods such as full and diagonal AdaGrad, AdaNorm, and an adaptive variant of Muon. The framework supports heterogeneous geometries across variable groups and provides a fully stochastic global convergence analysis for all methods, with or without two types of momentum, under reasonable variance assumptions without requiring bounded stochastic gradients or small step sizes.

By S. Gratton, Ph. L. Toint
arXiv Statistics ML
2d ago

Exact information accounting for SGD methods

arXiv:2610.00446v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: As an alternative to the standard geometric analyses, we give an exact, information-theoretic analysis of stochastic gradient descent (SGD) and its v...

By Akshay Balsubramani