arXiv Machine Learning

Particle-based Generalised Stochastic Optimisation

arXiv:2608. 02844v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: We develop a class of diffusion-based stochastic particle optimisation methods for loss functions with intractable gradients.

arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 15

Stochastic Gradient Descent over P2

The paper develops a diffusion approximation for stochastic gradient descent (SGD) when the optimization target is a functional on the Wasserstein space ℝ2. By lifting the problem to a Hilbert space via Lions differentiability, the authors construct a Gaussian random-field approximation whose velocity field matches the mean and covariance of the original stochastic gradient. They prove that this Gaussian approximation achieves second‑order weak accuracy, providing a rigorous basis for replacing sample‑driven randomness with analytically tractable Gaussian fluctuations in stochastic optimization over probability measures.

By Maria Oprea, Qin Li, Yunan Yang
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 27

Improved Analysis for Hessian-free High-resolution Monte Carlo Sampling

The paper introduces Hessian-free high-resolution (HFHR) dynamics, an extension of underdamped Langevin dynamics that incorporates reversible position diffusion for sampling in machine learning. It provides an explicit quantitative contraction rate under a position Poincaré inequality, weighted Hessian and Laplacian bounds, and a compact Sobolev embedding, even when the potential is non‑convex. For the HFHR Monte Carlo algorithm, a path‑space Girsanov argument yields a non‑asymptotic convergence bound and an explicit iteration complexity in total variation distance, improving on previous HFHR results and demonstrating benefits of a positive diffusion parameter through numerical experiments.

By Wujun Lv, Xiaoyu Wang, Yingli Wang, Lingjiong Zhu
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 15

Bridging Control, Inference, Transport, and Thermodynamics: From Theory to Applications in Learning

The review explores how control theory, optimal transport, probabilistic inference, non‑equilibrium thermodynamics, and machine learning are interconnected through the optimization of free‑energy‑like functionals under dynamical or statistical constraints. It presents a conceptual thread linking these five fields and illustrates the ideas with applications in reinforcement learning, variational inference, and generative modeling. The article is written for readers without prior familiarity, beginning with physics principles.

By Emmy Blumenthal, Nikolas Claussen, Benjamin Eysenbach, Catherine Ji, Gautam Reddy, Colin Scheibner, Benjamin Sorkin
Hugging Face Trending Papers
Aug 6

The Tamed Subgradient Unadjusted Langevin Algorithm beyond Convexity

We study the problem of sampling from target distributions whose potentials are simultaneously non-smooth, subject to superlinear gradient growth, and non-convex. We introduce the Subgradient Tamed Unadjusted Langevin Algorithm (SG-TULA), a discretisation of the Langevin diffusion that operates directly on subgradients, without relying on computationally demanding smoothing procedures.