The paper introduces a data‑free learning objective called relative trajectory balance for training diffusion models to sample from a posterior defined by a diffusion prior and an arbitrary black‑box constraint or likelihood. It proves asymptotic correctness of this objective and demonstrates its use across vision, language, and multimodal tasks, including classifier guidance, language infilling, and text‑to‑image generation. Additionally, the method is applied to continuous control with a score‑based behavior prior, achieving state‑of‑the‑art results in offline reinforcement learning.
By Siddarth Venkatraman, Moksh Jain, Luca Scimeca, Minsu Kim, Marcin Sendera, Mohsin Hasan, Luke Rowe, Sarthak Mittal, Pablo Lemos, Emmanuel Bengio, Alexandre Adam, Jarrid Rector-Brooks, Yoshua Bengio, Glen Berseth, Esmeralda S. Whitammer
arXiv:2609.01493v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: Black-Box Optimization (BBO) has found broad applications, but evolutionary algorithms and Bayesian optimization face efficiency challenges as real-w...
By Chao Qian, Chen-Guang Wang, Rong-Xi Tan, Ke Xue
Offline multi-objective optimization (MOO) seeks solutions with better objective trade-offs using only a fixed dataset, without querying the objectives. Diffusion models trained on such data have emer...
arXiv:2609.38920v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Offline multi-objective optimization (MOO) seeks solutions with better objective trade-offs using only a fixed dataset, without querying the objectives...
By Yuan Lu, Esha Singh, Yi-An Ma, Yusu Wang
The paper introduces D$^3$Opt, a derivative‑free diffusion‑based framework that separates constraint modeling from objective optimization in chance‑constrained programs. It learns a risk‑conditioned diffusion model once on constraint‑filtered decisions, then uses an annealed, particle‑based Feynman–Kac correction to optimize any post‑specified objective without retraining. The method is proven to preserve feasibility and provides an error bound, and experiments show effective optimization across smooth, non‑smooth, and non‑convex objectives, including objective transfer tasks.
By Ziwen Liu, Yan Liu, Congying Han, Tiande Guo, Yao Yan, Weichen Zhao
arXiv:2610.22763v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Bayesian optimization (BO) over discrete spaces is challenging due to missing gradients and the sparsity of valid solutions. Latent-space BO sidesteps...
By Tommaso Ancilli, Thomas Wedenig, Henry Moss, Robert Peharz
arXiv:2606. 00366v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We consider the problem of generating a large collection of initial guesses for local minima of multimodal non-convex continuous optimization problems.
By Anjian Li, Bartolomeo Stellato, Ryne Beeson
arXiv:2602. 08210v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Heatmap-based solvers have emerged as a promising paradigm for Combinatorial Optimization (CO).
By Hyungseok Song, Deunsol Yoon, Kanghoon Lee, Han-Seul Jeong, Soonyoung Lee, Woohyung Lim
arXiv:2606. 15359v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Diffusion models have emerged as powerful tools for planning and control by learning multimodal distributions over actions and trajectories.
By Paolo Giaretta, Zeyang Li, Navid Azizan
arXiv:2509.25592v2 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: Black-box optimization (BBO) addresses problems where objectives are accessible only through costly queries without gradients or explicit structure...
By Morteza Kimiaei, Vyacheslav Kungurtsev
The paper investigates training diffusion models to sample from distributions defined by unnormalized densities or energy functions. It benchmarks various diffusion-structured inference techniques, including simulation-based variational methods and off-policy approaches such as continuous generative flow networks, highlighting their relative strengths and challenging some prior claims. Additionally, the authors introduce a new exploration strategy for off-policy methods that employs local search in the target space with a replay buffer, demonstrating improved sample quality across multiple target distributions.
By Marcin Sendera, Minsu Kim, Sarthak Mittal, Pablo Lemos, Luca Scimeca, Jarrid Rector-Brooks, Alexandre Adam, Yoshua Bengio, Esmeralda S. Whitammer
arXiv:2406.04261v2 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: Simulators are vital in science and engineering, as they faithfully model the influence of design parameters on real-world observations. Optimizing...
By Tim Bakker, Fabio Valerio Massoli, Thomas Hehn, Tribhuvanesh Orekondy, Arash Behboodi