arXiv Statistics ML

Discrete Gromov-Wasserstein Duality: Algorithms and Isomorphism Testing

The paper presents a new duality formulation for the Gromov‑Wasserstein distance that applies to all finitely supported metric‑measure spaces, with and without entropic regularization. Using this duality, the authors derive sample‑complexity bounds and limit distributions for empirical GW distances, and introduce algorithms with formal convergence guarantees. These results enable a principled, efficient method for testing isomorphism between distributions on graphs with a fixed number of nodes based on samples.

arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 10

$k$-Nearest Neighbors in Gromov--Wasserstein Space

arXiv:2606. 10295v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: The Gromov--Wasserstein (GW) distance provides a framework for comparing metric measure spaces, regardless of their underlying structure or geometry.

By Kaitlyn Hohmeier, Nicolas Fraiman, Caroline Moosmueller
arXiv Computer Vision
Oct 5

Unlocking Geodesic Gromov-Wasserstein Distances for 3D Modeling

The paper introduces EGGroW, efficient algorithms for computing geodesic Gromov-Wasserstein distances using entropic Sinkhorn-like methods, GenusSink techniques, and random features. It addresses the cubic time complexity of traditional GWD calculations on dense intra-space distance matrices, enabling scalable comparisons of probabilistic distributions on general geodesic manifolds and graph shortest‑path distances. The authors demonstrate EGGroW’s effectiveness in downstream tasks such as 3D pose estimation and partial 3D template recovery, showing accurate results where Euclidean‑based methods fail while maintaining a light computational footprint.

By Krzysztof Marcin Choromanski, Derek Long, Ananya Parashar, Dwaipayan Saha
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 18

The Observable Wasserstein Distance

arXiv:2605. 09916v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: We introduce the observable Wasserstein distance, a framework for deriving lower bounds on the Wasserstein distance between probability measures on Polish metric spaces, designed to bypass the computational intractability of exact optimal transport in large-scale, non-Euclidean datasets.

By Edivaldo Lopes dos Santos, Leandro Vicente Mauri, Washington Mio, Tom Needham
arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 12

Linearized Wasserstein dimensionality reduction with approximation guarantees

The paper introduces LOT Wassmap, an algorithm designed to uncover low‑dimensional structures in the Wasserstein space without computing a full pairwise distance matrix. It leverages approximation schemes such as Sinkhorn distances and linearized optimal transport to accelerate computations, and provides theoretical guarantees on embedding quality even when only finite samples are available. Experiments show that LOT Wassmap achieves accurate embeddings that improve with larger sample sizes while significantly reducing computational cost compared to traditional pairwise‑distance‑based methods.

By Alexander Cloninger, Keaton Hamm, Varun Khurana, Caroline Moosm\"uller
arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 7

Constant-Curvature Sliced Gromov-Wasserstein for Heterogeneous Cross-Curvature Alignment

The paper introduces Constant‑Curvature Sliced Gromov‑Wasserstein (CCSGW), a new divergence for aligning probability distributions on heterogeneous constant‑curvature spaces such as hyperbolic and spherical manifolds. It extends sliced Gromov‑Wasserstein by adding geodesic‑based one‑dimensional projections for spherical spaces, enabling efficient and principled comparison across manifolds with different curvatures while preserving intrinsic geometric relationships. The authors provide theoretical analysis showing that CCSGW controls intrinsic geometric discrepancy and demonstrate consistent performance gains when integrated into mixed‑curvature learning tasks like graph anomaly detection, node classification, and multimodal learning.

By Shanglin Li, Wenjing Lu, Muyang Li, Nicu Sebe, Ziheng Chen
arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 16

Vertical Sliced Wasserstein Distances for Meta-Measures

arXiv:2610. 20743v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Many modern learning problems require comparing probability distributions whose individual observations are themselves probability measures, naturally giving rise to meta-measures in $\mathcal{P}(\mathcal{P}(\Omega))$.

By Elaheh Akbari, Ahmadreza Moradipari, Kyungtae Han, Hamed Pirsiavash, Yikun Bai, Rocio Diaz Martin, Soheil Kolouri
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 31

Optimal Transport for Network Comparison: A Review with Machine Learning Applications

The paper reviews the use of optimal transport for comparing undirected, unweighted graphs, focusing on three main distances: Wasserstein, Gromov-Wasserstein, and Bures-Wasserstein. It discusses closed-form solutions for the Wasserstein distance in one dimension, how transport plans identify influential nodes after perturbations, and derives spectral bounds for the Bures-Wasserstein distance to avoid full decompositions. The authors evaluate these distances on synthetic clustering data and a real-world time‑series network for anomaly detection.

By James Hyun, Fran\c{c}ois G. Meyer