arXiv AI

Optimal Transport for Machine Learners

arXiv:2505. 06589v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Modern machine learning repeatedly manipulates probability measures: empirical datasets, generated samples, latent distributions, class-conditional laws, particle systems, weights of wide networks and attention patterns.

arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 5

Variational Entropic Optimal Transport

arXiv:2602. 02241v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Entropic optimal transport (EOT) in continuous spaces with quadratic cost is a classical tool for solving the domain translation problem.

By Roman Dyachenko, Nikita Gushchin, Kirill Sokolov, Petr Mokrov, Evgeny Burnaev, Alexander Korotin
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 28

COFM: Consistent Optimal Transport Flow Matching via Partially Input Convex Neural Networks

The paper introduces COFM, a framework for consistent optimal transport flow matching that uses partially input convex neural networks (PICNN) to parameterize the transport potential. By adding a Hamilton‑Jacobi residual to the training objective, COFM enforces dynamical consistency and supports both one‑step transport and multi‑step ODE sampling without costly inner optimization. Experiments on benchmark datasets show that COFM achieves competitive performance while reducing L^2‑UVP by over 2× and cutting computational time by about 9× compared to state‑of‑the‑art models.

By Fanghui Song, Zhongjian Wang, Jiebao Sun
arXiv AI
Sep 10

Deep Barycentric Regression for Optimal Transport Map Estimation and its Statistical Optimality

The paper introduces BROT, a two‑step approach for estimating optimal transport maps. First, it computes the unregularized OT plan, then fits a deep neural network to the resulting barycentric targets using least‑squares regression. The authors prove that, under standard regularity conditions, BROT achieves the minimax convergence rate when the true OT map is Lipschitz, and demonstrate its effectiveness on synthetic data, images, and downstream tasks such as single‑cell perturbation prediction and unsupervised domain adaptation.

By Kunwoong Kim, Insung Kong, Yongdai Kim
arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 30

Learning from samples: inverse problems over measures

arXiv:2505. 07124v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: We study inverse problems where an unknown potential is observed only through samples from the measure it induces by a convex variational principle.

By Francisco Andrade, Gabriel Peyr\'e, Clarice Poon
Hugging Face Trending Papers
Jun 29

The Fundamental Limits of Valid Transport Map Estimation

Many modern generative modeling methods, including diffusion models, normalizing flows, and flow matching, estimate transport maps or plans between distributions without explicitly targeting an optimal transport (OT) map. In applications like generative modeling, the transport cost itself is irrelevant, and this makes it natural to target maps which are more tractable from either a statistical or computational standpoint.

arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 22

Statistical Inference for Adversarial Training: Central Limit Theorems via Optimal Transport

The paper rigorously analyzes the statistical and learning-theoretic properties of adversarial training models for classification, focusing on empirical optimal partial transport. It establishes two central limit theorems—one centered at the expected empirical value and another at the population value with smoothing—by leveraging the uniqueness of optimal potentials across various optimal transport formulations and empirical process theory. In the binary setting, the authors prove uniqueness of the optimal potential via a connection to multi-marginal optimal transport, and as additional results they derive stability of the saddle point, sample complexity, and concentration bounds for generalization error.

By Kim Jakwang, Kwon Dohyun
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 13

Fine-Tuning Generative Models for Extreme Events via CVaR-Penalized Wasserstein Gradient Flows

arXiv:2608. 11544v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: We propose CVaR-penalized Generative Particle Algorithm (CVaR-GPA), a robust, tail-agnostic algorithm for fine-tuning generative models to learn heavy-tailed distributions and capture extreme events, requiring no prior knowledge or estimation of the target's tail characteristics.

By Thejani Gamage, Hyemin Gu, Zhizhen Zhang, Ziyu Chen, Markos Katsoulakis, Luc Rey-Bellet