Convergence Analysis of the Wasserstein Proximal Algorithm beyond Geodesic Convexity
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arXiv:2606. 27767v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Optimizing functionals over the space of probability measures is now ubiquitous in machine learning.
arXiv:2411. 15067v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: We investigate proximal descent methods, inspired by the minimizing movement scheme introduced by Jordan, Kinderlehrer and Otto, for optimizing entropy-regularized functionals on the Wasserstein space.
arXiv:2311. 15365v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: We study an idealized training process for deep neural networks in a continuous-depth, mean-field model in which each layer is parameterized by a probability measure on a Euclidean parameter space.
The paper introduces a geometric framework for reinforcement learning that treats policies as mappings into the Wasserstein space of action probabilities. It establishes a Riemannian structure induced by stationary distributions, defines the tangent space of policies, and characterizes geodesics while addressing measurability concerns. The authors formulate a general RL optimization problem, construct a gradient flow via Otto's calculus, compute the gradient and Hessian of the energy, and demonstrate the approach with numerical examples for low‑dimensional problems and neural‑network‑parameterized policies for high‑dimensional settings.
arXiv:2102. 09235v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Recent studies revealed the mathematical connection between deep neural networks (DNNs) and dynamic systems.
The paper develops a diffusion approximation for stochastic gradient descent (SGD) when the optimization target is a functional on the Wasserstein space ℝ2. By lifting the problem to a Hilbert space via Lions differentiability, the authors construct a Gaussian random-field approximation whose velocity field matches the mean and covariance of the original stochastic gradient. They prove that this Gaussian approximation achieves second‑order weak accuracy, providing a rigorous basis for replacing sample‑driven randomness with analytically tractable Gaussian fluctuations in stochastic optimization over probability measures.