An approach to Fisher-Rao metric for infinite dimensional non-parametric information geometry
Abstract
Being infinite dimensional, non-parametric information geometry has long faced an "intractability barrier" due to the fact that the Fisher-Rao metric is now a functional incurring difficulties in defining its inverse. This paper introduces a novel framework to resolve the intractability with an Orthogonal Decomposition of the Tangent Space (), where represents an observable covariate subspace. Through the decomposition, we derive the Covariate Fisher Information Matrix (cFIM), denoted as , which is a finite-dimensional and computable representative of information extractable from the manifold's geometry. Significantly, by proving the Trace Theorem: , we establish a rigorous foundation for the G-entropy previously introduced by us, thereby identifying it as a fundamental geometric invariant representing the total explainable statistical information captured by the probability distribution associated with a model. Furthermore, we establish a link between and the second derivative (i.e. the curvature) of the KL-divergence, leading to the notion of Covariate Cram\'er-Rao Lower Bound(CRLB). We demonstrate that is congruent to the Efficient Fisher Information Matrix, thereby providing fundamental limits of variance for semi-parametric estimators. Finally, we apply our geometric framework to the Manifold Hypothesis, lifting the latter from a heuristic assumption into a testable condition of rank-deficiency within the cFIM. By defining the Information Capture Ratio, we provide a rigorous method for estimating intrinsic dimensionality in high-dimensional data. In short, our work bridges the gap between abstract information geometry and the demand of explainable AI, by providing a tractable path for assessing the statistical coverage and the efficiency of non-parametric models.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2512.21451,
title = {An approach to Fisher-Rao metric for infinite dimensional non-parametric information geometry},
author = {Bing Cheng and Howell Tong},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.21451},
year = {2026}
}