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The Langevin Dynamics (LD), which aims to sample from a probability distribution using its score function, has been widely used for analyzing and developing score-based generative modeling algorithms. While the convergence behavior of LD in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-06-11 Xiwei Cheng , Kexin Fu , Farzan Farnia

Along with the recent advances in scalable Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods, sampling techniques that are based on Langevin diffusions have started receiving increasing attention. These so called Langevin Monte Carlo (LMC) methods are based…

Computation · Statistics 2017-06-14 Umut Şimşekli

When statistical analyses consider multiple data sources, Markov melding provides a method for combining the source-specific Bayesian models. Markov melding joins together submodels that have a common quantity. One challenge is that the…

Methodology · Statistics 2022-03-17 Andrew A. Manderson , Robert J. B. Goudie

We develop a modular approach to Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling for unnormalized target densities. In this approach, Markov chains are constructed in parallel, each constrained to a subset of the target space. The Monte Carlo…

Computation · Statistics 2026-05-05 Joonha Park

Geometric tempering is a popular approach to sampling from challenging multi-modal probability distributions by instead sampling from a sequence of distributions which interpolate, using the geometric mean, between an easier proposal…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-04-09 Omar Chehab , Anna Korba , Austin Stromme , Adrien Vacher

This paper proposes a novel diffusion-based posterior sampling method within a plug-and-play (PnP) framework. Our approach constructs a probability transport from an easy-to-sample terminal distribution to the target posterior, using a…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-12-10 Jinyuan Chang , Chenguang Duan , Yuling Jiao , Ruoxuan Li , Jerry Zhijian Yang , Cheng Yuan

Given a noisy linear measurement $y = Ax + \xi$ of a distribution $p(x)$, and a good approximation to the prior $p(x)$, when can we sample from the posterior $p(x \mid y)$? Posterior sampling provides an accurate and fair framework for…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-19 Zhiyang Xun , Shivam Gupta , Eric Price

We propose a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm based on third-order Langevin dynamics for sampling from distributions with log-concave and smooth densities. The higher-order dynamics allow for more flexible discretization schemes,…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-05-27 Wenlong Mou , Yi-An Ma , Martin J. Wainwright , Peter L. Bartlett , Michael I. Jordan

We establish sample complexity guarantees for estimating the covariance matrix of a strongly log-concave smooth distribution using the unadjusted Langevin algorithm (ULA). We quantitatively compare our complexity estimates on single-chain…

Probability · Mathematics 2026-02-16 Shogo Nakakita

In this paper, we revisit the recently established theoretical guarantees for the convergence of the Langevin Monte Carlo algorithm of sampling from a smooth and (strongly) log-concave density. We improve the existing results when the…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2017-07-31 Arnak S. Dalalyan

In this paper, we examine the computational complexity of sampling from a Bayesian posterior (or pseudo-posterior) using the Metropolis-adjusted Langevin algorithm (MALA). MALA first employs a discrete-time Langevin SDE to propose a new…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2024-05-10 Rong Tang , Yun Yang

We consider the nonparametric maximum likelihood estimation for the underlying event time based on mixed-case interval-censored data, under a log-concavity assumption on its distribution function. This generalized framework relaxes the…

Computation · Statistics 2024-12-02 Chi Wing Chu , Hok Kan Ling , Chaoyu Yuan

An effective approach for sampling from unnormalized densities is based on the idea of gradually transporting samples from an easy prior to the complicated target distribution. Two popular methods are (1) Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC), where…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-09-09 Junhua Chen , Lorenz Richter , Julius Berner , Denis Blessing , Gerhard Neumann , Anima Anandkumar

Overdamped Langevin dynamics are reversible stochastic differential equations which are commonly used to sample probability measures in high-dimensional spaces, such as the ones appearing in computational statistical physics and Bayesian…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2025-02-10 Tony Lelièvre , Grigorios A. Pavliotis , Geneviève Robin , Régis Santet , Gabriel Stoltz

We consider the problem of sampling from a strongly log-concave density in $\mathbb{R}^d$, and prove a non-asymptotic upper bound on the mixing time of the Metropolis-adjusted Langevin algorithm (MALA). The method draws samples by…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-12-12 Raaz Dwivedi , Yuansi Chen , Martin J. Wainwright , Bin Yu

We extend the L\'evy Langevin Monte Carlo method studied by Oechsler in 2024 to the setting of a target distribution with heavy tails: Choosing a target distribution from the class of subexponential distributions we prove convergence of a…

Probability · Mathematics 2025-07-15 Anita Behme , Claudius Lütke Schwienhorst

Modern problems in astronomical Bayesian inference require efficient methods for sampling from complex, high-dimensional, often multi-modal probability distributions. Most popular methods, such as Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling, perform…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2016-03-16 Will Vousden , Will M. Farr , Ilya Mandel

We propose a hybrid generative model for efficient sampling of high-dimensional, multimodal probability distributions for Bayesian inference. Traditional Monte Carlo methods, such as the Metropolis-Hastings and Langevin Monte Carlo sampling…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-05-14 Hoang Tran , Zezhong Zhang , Feng Bao , Dan Lu , Guannan Zhang

The Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) sampling algorithm exploits Hamiltonian dynamics to construct efficient Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), which has become increasingly popular in machine learning and statistics. Since HMC uses the gradient…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-06-04 Minghao Gu , Shiliang Sun

When working with multimodal Bayesian posterior distributions, Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms have difficulty moving between modes, and default variational or mode-based approximate inferences will understate posterior…

Methodology · Statistics 2021-11-19 Yuling Yao , Aki Vehtari , Andrew Gelman