Accelerating Langevin Monte Carlo Sampling: A Large Deviations Analysis
Probability
2026-05-21 v2 Machine Learning
Abstract
Langevin algorithms are popular Markov chain Monte Carlo methods that are often used to solve high-dimensional large-scale sampling problems in machine learning. The most classical Langevin Monte Carlo algorithm is based on the overdamped Langevin dynamics. There are many variants of Langevin dynamics that often show superior performance in practice. In this paper, we provide a unified approach to study the acceleration of the variants of the overdamped Langevin dynamics through the lens of large deviations theory. Numerical experiments using both synthetic and real data are provided to illustrate the efficiency of these variants.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2503.19066,
title = {Accelerating Langevin Monte Carlo Sampling: A Large Deviations Analysis},
author = {Nian Yao and Pervez Ali and Xihua Tao and Lingjiong Zhu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.19066},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
53 pages, 5 figures