Geometry-Aware Langevin Sampling for Matrix-Valued Graph Learning
Abstract
Bayesian inference over positive semidefinite (PSD) matrix-valued parameters arises in structured covariance estimation, graph-Laplacian precision models, and multi-output graph learning, but Euclidean proposals often mix poorly near the cone boundary. We propose \ConeMALA, a geometry-aware Metropolis-adjusted Langevin algorithm whose proposal geometry is induced by the model's log-determinant structure. For a PSD-weighted graph with edge kernels , block Laplacian , and stabilizer , the lifted precision matrix defines the log-determinant energy We show that the Hessian of is the pullback of the affine-invariant SPD metric under the map , yielding explicit intrinsic Langevin proposals with Metropolis-Hastings correction using the closed-form SPD exponential-map Jacobian. We validate the metric on rank-one PSD edge perturbations for , obtaining essentially exact agreement between analytic curvature scores and finite-difference curvatures. In intrinsic SPD posterior and matrix-valued graph Gaussian experiments, \ConeMALA achieves stable multichain diagnostics and substantially higher ESS/sec than Euclidean MALA and generic RMALA, while a PDHMC-like finite-difference baseline is accurate but computationally prohibitive at larger graph sizes. These results show that pullback log-determinant geometry provides a practical route to uncertainty quantification in PSD-constrained graph learning.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2603.24913,
title = {Geometry-Aware Langevin Sampling for Matrix-Valued Graph Learning},
author = {Papri Dey},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.24913},
year = {2026}
}