arXiv Statistics ML By Han Chen, Sifan Liu, Jun Yang

Markov Chain Monte Carlo with Diffusion Paths

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The paper introduces a new Markov chain Monte Carlo method that samples from multimodal distributions by interpolating along the diffusion path of a noising diffusion process, preserving mode weights and improving mixing. It proposes a Metropolis-adjusted diffusion path (MAD-Path) sampler that corrects for bias from approximate score estimates and discretization errors, ensuring the target distribution remains invariant. Experiments on Bayesian posteriors demonstrate that MAD-Path outperforms tempering-based MCMC and unadjusted diffusion samplers in global exploration and accurate mode-weight estimation.

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