arXiv Statistics ML

On skew-symmetric distributions and their use in Monte Carlo sampling algorithms: coordinate-free, Gibbs-style and manifold versions of the Barker proposal

arXiv Machine Learning
Jul 14

Gaussian Invariant Markov Chain Monte Carlo

arXiv:2506. 21511v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: We develop sampling methods, which consist of Gaussian invariant versions of random walk Metropolis (RWM), Metropolis adjusted Langevin algorithm (MALA) and second order Hessian or Manifold MALA.

By Michalis K. Titsias, Angelos Alexopoulos, Siran Liu, Petros Dellaportas
Hugging Face Trending Papers
Jul 8

Gradient-free Riemannian Langevin Sampler

We address the problem of efficiently sampling multimodal probability distributions, where standard Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods often suffer from poor mixing and mode trapping. To mitigate these issues, we propose Gradient-free Riemannian Langevin Sampler (GRiLS), a novel proposal that improves exploration without requiring gradient evaluations of the target density.

arXiv AI
Jun 10

Sample Where You Struggle: Sharpening Base Model Reasoning via Entropy-Guided Power Sampling

arXiv:2606. 09926v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Sampling from the sequence-level power distribution $p^\alpha$ elicits RL-level reasoning from base language models without any parameter updates, but the standard Metropolis--Hastings (MH), a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampler, is both expensive and slow-mixing.

By Hong Guo, Nianhui Guo, Christoph Meinel, Haojin Yang
arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 18

Riemannian MeanFlow for One-Step Generation on Manifolds

arXiv:2603. 10718v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Flow Matching enables simulation-free training of generative models on Riemannian manifolds, yet sampling typically still relies on numerically integrating a probability-flow ODE.

By Zichen Zhong, Haoliang Sun, Yukun Zhao, Yongshun Gong, Yilong Yin
arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 10

MAD: Manifold Attracted Diffusion

arXiv:2509. 24710v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Score-based diffusion models are a highly effective method for generating samples from a distribution of images.

By Dennis Elbr\"achter, Giovanni S. Alberti, Matteo Santacesaria
arXiv Statistics ML
Aug 26

A Non-asymptotic Analysis for Learning and Applying a Preconditioner in MCMC

The paper presents a non‑asymptotic analysis of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms that learn and apply a preconditioner based on either the target covariance or the expected Hessian of the target potential. It compares the finite‑time computational costs of these preconditioned schemes with unpreconditioned counterparts, providing guarantees for algorithms such as the Unadjusted Langevin Algorithm (ULA) and the proximal sampler. The analysis relies on a contraction assumption in the Wasserstein‑2 distance to formalize approximate independence and bridge modern MCMC theory with classical effective sample size heuristics.

By Max Hird, Florian Maire, Jeffrey Negrea
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 17

Correcting Boundary Bias and Observation Independence in Bayesian Experimental Design

The paper tackles two shortcomings of Gaussian‑process based active learning: (1) the posterior variance is independent of observed values, reducing sensitivity to data structure, and (2) it over‑inflates variance near domain boundaries, causing excessive edge sampling. The authors propose a reconstruction‑driven design density that warps sampling toward regions where the posterior mean changes rapidly, and a geometric equalizer that corrects boundary bias. Experiments on sixteen synthetic and two real‑data benchmarks show that the equalizer consistently improves function reconstruction, while the warp further enhances performance by concentrating measurements where the target function varies most.

By Sanna Jarl, Jens Sj\"olund, Jonathan J. S. Scragg, Maria B{\aa}nkestad