arXiv Machine Learning

Entropy-Controlled Flow Matching

arXiv:2602. 22265v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Modern vision generators transport a base distribution to data through time-indexed measures, implemented as deterministic flows (ODEs) or stochastic diffusions (SDEs).

arXiv AI
Jun 24

The Geometry Behind Diffusion and Flow Matching: Gradient Flows and Geodesics in Wasserstein Space

arXiv:2606. 24157v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: The space $\mathcal{P}_2(\mathbb{R}^d$) of probability measures with finite second moment carries a natural geometry: the quadratic Wasserstein distance W_2 makes it a complete metric space and, following Otto, a (formal) Riemannian manifold whose geodesics are the optimal-transport interpolations.

By Yian Yao, Weiwei Zhang
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 4

Beckmann Transport Models: From Autonomous Flows to One-Step Maps

arXiv:2608. 01692v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We propose an instantiation of flow matching that relies on a time-independent velocity field (an \emph{autonomous flow}) to exactly map between two distributions, so long as the target is singular, i.

By Lee Cheuk-Kit, Florentin Coeurdoux, Peter Potaptchik, Yilun Du, Michael Samuel Albergo, Eric Vanden-Eijnden
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 7

Potential Matching Optimal Transport: Continuous Normalizing Flows for Exact $p$-Wasserstein Dynamics

arXiv:2608. 05666v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We introduce Potential Matching Optimal Transport (PMOT), a potential-flow framework for general $p$-cost optimal transport with $c_p(x,y)=\|x-y\|^p$.

By Lishuo Zhang (School of Mathematical Sciences, Shanghai Jiao Tong University), Ruizhi Huang (School of Mathematical Sciences, Shanghai Jiao Tong University), Yang Yu (School of Mathematical Sciences, Shanghai Jiao Tong University), Lei Li (School of Mathematical Sciences, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Institute of Natural Sciences, MOE-LSC, Shanghai Jiao Tong University)
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 17

Wasserstein Formulation of Reinforcement Learning. An Optimal Transport Perspective on Policy Optimization

The paper introduces a geometric framework for reinforcement learning that treats policies as mappings into the Wasserstein space of action probabilities. It establishes a Riemannian structure induced by stationary distributions, defines the tangent space of policies, and characterizes geodesics while addressing measurability concerns. The authors formulate a general RL optimization problem, construct a gradient flow via Otto's calculus, compute the gradient and Hessian of the energy, and demonstrate the approach with numerical examples for low‑dimensional problems and neural‑network‑parameterized policies for high‑dimensional settings.

By Mathias Dus (IRMA)
arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 30

Robustness and Structure Preservation in Flow-Based Generative Models via Wasserstein Path-Space Divergences

arXiv:2410. 01244v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: We introduce a novel Wasserstein-1 ($W_1$) path-space divergence for stochastic and deterministic dynamics and establish a Wasserstein Uncertainty Propagation (WUP) theorem that bounds the $W_1$ distance between terminal distributions by the proposed divergence, equivalently characterized by a weighted $L^2$ discrepancy between the underlying drifts and the $W_1$ distance between their initial measures.

By Ziyu Chen, Markos A. Katsoulakis, Benjamin J. Zhang
arXiv Machine Learning
Jul 21

Twisted Schr\"odinger Bridge Matching

arXiv:2607. 16987v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Over the past few years, diffusion-based Schr\"odinger bridge models have been proposed to approximate optimal transport dynamics between two prescribed boundary distributions, with successful applications to generative modeling.

By Maxence Noble, Marie Scheid, Yazid Janati, Eric Moulines, Alain Durmus