arXiv Machine Learning

Quantum Speedups for Sampling and Non-convex Optimization with Stochastic Oracles

arXiv:2504. 03626v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: We present quantum speedups for sampling from distributions of the form $\pi\propto e^{-f}$ on $\mathbb{R}^d$.

arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 9

Adaptive directional gradients for parameterised quantum circuits

arXiv:2606. 09734v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Training parameterised quantum circuits (PQCs) on quantum hardware is bottlenecked by the measurement cost of gradient estimation, which under the parameter-shift rule scales linearly in the number of trainable parameters and dominates the total shot budget of training at scale.

By Brian Coyle, Snehal Raj, Virag Umathe, El Amine Cherrat, Elham Kashefi
arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 12

Robust Langevin Sampling under State-Dependent Heavy-Tailed Noise with Applications to LLM Fine-Tuning

arXiv:2610. 12865v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Existing convergence guarantees for non-log-concave sampling with stochastic gradient Langevin Monte Carlo (SG-LMC) typically assume globally Lipschitz gradients and uniformly bounded noise variance.

By M. Berk Sahin, Ege C. Kaya, Arda Fazla, Behzad Sharif, Abolfazl Hashemi
arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 26

Finding Stationary Points by Comparisons

arXiv:2606. 27082v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We study the problem of finding stationary points of non-convex functions when access to the objective is provided only through a comparison oracle that, given two points, outputs which has the larger function value.

By Helin Wang, Chenyi Zhang, Xiwen Tao, Yexin Zhang, Tongyang Li
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 23

Penalized Nonreversible Langevin for Constrained Sampling

The paper introduces penalized nonreversible Langevin algorithms for sampling from a target distribution constrained to a compact convex set. It combines a squared distance penalty with skew-symmetric perturbations that preserve the penalized Gibbs distribution, and provides nonasymptotic total variation and Wasserstein bounds under various smoothness and contraction assumptions. Numerical experiments demonstrate the methods on constrained Bayesian regression, classification, neural networks, and truncated sampling, highlighting acceleration in a stochastic quadratic model.

By Pervez Ali, Weihao Dong, Xiaoyu Wang
arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 17

Randomized Midpoint Method for Log-Concave Sampling under Constraints

arXiv:2405. 15379v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: In this paper, we study the problem of sampling from log-concave distributions supported on convex and compact sets, with a particular focus on the randomized midpoint discretization of both overdamped and kinetic Langevin diffusions in constrained domains.

By Yifeng Yu, Shijie Zhang, Lu Yu
arXiv AI
Aug 20

Entropy-Constrained Adaptive Stochastic Quantization

arXiv:2608. 18147v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Adaptive stochastic quantization (ASQ) is a recently introduced quantization approach that optimizes the Mean Squared Error (MSE) for a given input while preserving unbiasedness.

By Ran Ben Basat, Yaniv Ben-Itzhak, Michael Mitzenmacher, Shay Vargaftik
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 16

Towards Surrogate Based Dequantization of Quantum Reinforcement Learning

The paper investigates whether quantum reinforcement learning algorithms can be matched by efficient classical methods. It focuses on a simplified reinforcement learning setting with a uniform generative model, providing finite‑sample guarantees for classical kernelized Fitted Q‑Iteration that uses kernels aligned with parameterized quantum circuits. The authors identify sufficient conditions on data encoding, kernel choice, and problem structure under which this classical approach dequantizes quantum Q‑learning, and suggest using kernelized Fitted Q‑Iteration as a heuristic when those conditions cannot be verified.

By Pablo Rodriguez-Grasa, Sofiene Jerbi, Mikel Sanz, Ryan Sweke
arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 9

Beyond QAOA: A Review of AI and Quantum Computing for Adaptive Combinatorial Optimization

The review examines how machine learning can adapt quantum combinatorial optimization workflows by learning decisions such as formulation, penalties, shot budgets, and backend selection. It categorizes the literature into three paradigms—AI for quantum optimization, quantum for AI-driven optimization, and AI‑quantum co‑optimization—and analyzes 119 papers, finding stronger evidence for AI assisting quantum methods than for quantum enhancing learned optimizers. The authors highlight limited experimental controls, introduce an M0‑M5 evidence hierarchy, and argue that scaling is a systems problem requiring careful allocation of classical and quantum resources.

By Hoong Chuin LAU