arXiv Machine Learning

Random Quadratic Form with random forcing: Metastable synchronization by noise

arXiv:2608. 16664v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: We study the Random Quadratic Form (RQF) on a sphere in the presence of random Brownian forcing.

arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 28

Quantifying the failure of symmetry learning in linear diffusion models due to initialization and finite-sample effects

The paper investigates why diffusion models sometimes fail to learn symmetries present in data distributions, such as different orientations of a dog. Focusing on linear diffusion models, it identifies three possible sources of symmetry breaking—non‑symmetric initial weights, noisy learning targets, and finite‑sample noise—and shows that target noise is the most robust cause, persisting even with abundant data. Using random matrix theory, the authors derive formulas for average symmetry error, revealing that smaller symmetries are harder to learn.

By John J. Vastola, Kanaka Rajan
arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 19

Dynamics of Stochastic Momentum with Sparse Updates in High Dimensions

The paper studies momentum-based optimization when updates are sparse, focusing on two tractable models: a least‑squares problem with sparse inputs and a logistic regression problem with a rare class. It derives exact closed‑form second‑moment dynamics and analyzes their high‑dimensional limits across three scaling exponents for sparsity, batch size, and momentum decay. The resulting phase diagram is governed by the ratio of a momentum retention timescale and a learning timescale, revealing regimes where the dynamics match SGD, become unstable, or recover classical heavy‑ball behavior, and showing that oscillatory behavior depends on token sparsity, leading to a spectral conflict for global momentum.

By Katie Everett, Elliot Paquette
arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 3

Generative Modeling of Stochastic Dynamics for Long-Time Evolution

The paper demonstrates that long‑time stochastic dynamics can be predicted using generative diffusion models trained only on configuration pairs separated by a short, fixed time lag, without requiring the underlying equations of motion. Applied to two‑dimensional Model B and driven colloids in a periodic optical potential, the learned transition kernels accurately reproduce dynamic critical scaling, self‑similar coarsening, and experimental observables such as particle current and mean passage time, even on larger lattices and unseen initial conditions. This shows that short‑time observations contain sufficient information to forecast emergent non‑equilibrium behavior over extended periods.

By Yang-yang Tan, Jinyang Li, Lingxiao Wang
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 4

Correlated initialization of deep residual networks

The paper investigates how deep residual networks behave when their initial weights are correlated across layers. It confirms a conjecture that such correlated initializations interpolate between a Brownian stochastic differential equation (for independent weights) and an ordinary differential equation (for perfectly correlated weights). By applying a feature function to a stationary Gaussian sequence with regularly varying correlation, the authors prove that a unique critical scaling exists, leading the infinite‑depth limit to a Young differential equation driven by a Hermite process, which reduces to fractional Brownian motion when the feature function has Hermite rank one. The study shows that the correlation structure and Hermite rank of the initialization uniquely determine the critical scaling and asymptotic limit, making them meaningful hyperparameters in the asymptotic regime, whereas finite‑variance i.i.d. initialization always yields a Brownian driver regardless of distribution.

By Felix Benning, Ivan Nourdin, Giovanni Peccati
Hugging Face Trending Papers
Jul 5

Broken Ergodicity and the Violation of the Fluctuation-Dissipation Theorem Lead to Generalization Beyond Overfitting in Machine Learning

The remarkable ability of modern neural networks to generalize improves with increasing network capacity, even when the number of model parameters or effective degrees of freedom exceeds the number of training data points. This phenomenon is all the more surprising given that generalization error diverges when the number of model parameters approaches a critical value from below.

arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 5

Broken scale symmetries in undercomplete linear autoencoders

The paper investigates how finite‑stepsize stochastic gradient descent (SGD) breaks scale symmetry in undercomplete linear autoencoders. It shows that SGD induces a directed scale drift that favors large decoder weights on the PCA solution manifold, a process that is slow and analytically tractable but eventually halted by a stability boundary. The resulting solutions exhibit sharper loss Hessians compared to a balanced baseline, illustrating how loss geometry can transform residual gradient noise into directed motion along equivalent solution manifolds.

By Farhad Pashakhanloo, Jacob A. Zavatone-Veth