English

Flow-based sampling for multimodal and extended-mode distributions in lattice field theory

High Energy Physics - Lattice 2025-02-18 v2 Statistical Mechanics Machine Learning

Abstract

Recent results have demonstrated that samplers constructed with flow-based generative models are a promising new approach for configuration generation in lattice field theory. In this paper, we present a set of training- and architecture-based methods to construct flow models for targets with multiple separated modes (i.e.~vacua) as well as targets with extended/continuous modes. We demonstrate the application of these methods to modeling two-dimensional real and complex scalar field theories in their symmetry-broken phases. In this context we investigate different flow-based sampling algorithms, including a composite sampling algorithm where flow-based proposals are occasionally augmented by applying updates using traditional algorithms like HMC.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2107.00734,
  title  = {Flow-based sampling for multimodal and extended-mode distributions in lattice field theory},
  author = {Daniel C. Hackett and Chung-Chun Hsieh and Sahil Pontula and Michael S. Albergo and Denis Boyda and Jiunn-Wei Chen and Kai-Feng Chen and Kyle Cranmer and Gurtej Kanwar and Phiala E. Shanahan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2107.00734},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

38+3 pages, 39 figures. v2: major revisions including new application to extended modes

R2 v1 2026-06-24T03:49:25.291Z