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Wasserstein gradient flows (WGFs) describe the evolution of probability distributions in Wasserstein space as steepest descent dynamics for a free energy functional. Computing the full path from an arbitrary initial distribution to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-14 Chengyu Liu , Xiang Zhou

Generative modeling typically concerns transporting a single source distribution to a target distribution via simple probability flows. However, in fields like computer graphics and single-cell genomics, samples themselves can be viewed as…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-20 Doron Haviv , Aram-Alexandre Pooladian , Dana Pe'er , Brandon Amos

In this paper, we present an ensemble data assimilation paradigm over a Riemannian manifold equipped with the Wasserstein metric. Unlike the Eulerian penalization of error in the Euclidean space, the Wasserstein metric can capture…

Methodology · Statistics 2021-10-11 Sagar K. Tamang , Ardeshir Ebtehaj , Peter J. Van Leeuwen , Dongmian Zou , Gilad Lerman

Suppose we are given two metric spaces and a family of continuous transformations from one to the other. Given a probability distribution on each of these two spaces - namely the source and the target measures - the Wasserstein alignment…

Probability · Mathematics 2025-03-11 Soumik Pal , Bodhisattva Sen , Ting-Kam Leonard Wong

We develop the theory of a metric, which we call the $\nu$-based Wasserstein metric and denote by $W_\nu$, on the set of probability measures $\mathcal P(X)$ on a domain $X \subseteq \mathbb{R}^m$. This metric is based on a slight…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-09-16 Luca Nenna , Brendan Pass

Wasserstein distributionally robust optimization (WDRO) strengthens statistical learning under model uncertainty by minimizing the local worst-case risk within a prescribed ambiguity set. Although WDRO has been extensively studied in…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-11-12 Changyu Liu , Yuling Jiao , Junhui Wang , Jian Huang

This paper introduces a new nonlinear dictionary learning method for histograms in the probability simplex. The method leverages optimal transport theory, in the sense that our aim is to reconstruct histograms using so-called displacement…

Random measures provide flexible parameters for Bayesian nonparametric models. Given two different priors for a random measure, we develop a natural framework to investigate the rate at which the corresponding posteriors merge, as the…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2025-09-17 Marta Catalano , Hugo Lavenant

We introduce a distributionally robust maximum likelihood estimation model with a Wasserstein ambiguity set to infer the inverse covariance matrix of a $p$-dimensional Gaussian random vector from $n$ independent samples. The proposed model…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-05-21 Viet Anh Nguyen , Daniel Kuhn , Peyman Mohajerin Esfahani

Wasserstein barycenters provide a geometrically meaningful way to aggregate probability distributions, built on the theory of optimal transport. They are difficult to compute in practice, however, leading previous work to restrict their…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-10-27 Lingxiao Li , Aude Genevay , Mikhail Yurochkin , Justin Solomon

We study policy gradient methods for continuous-action, entropy-regularized reinforcement learning through the lens of Wasserstein geometry. Starting from a Wasserstein proximal update, we derive Wasserstein Proximal Policy Gradient (WPPG)…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-04 Zhaoyu Zhu , Shuhan Zhang , Rui Gao , Shuang Li

A novel optimization approach is proposed for application to policy gradient methods and evolution strategies for reinforcement learning (RL). The procedure uses a computationally efficient Wasserstein natural gradient (WNG) descent that…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-03-19 Ted Moskovitz , Michael Arbel , Ferenc Huszar , Arthur Gretton

Distribution data refers to a data set where each sample is represented as a probability distribution, a subject area receiving burgeoning interest in the field of statistics. Although several studies have developed…

Methodology · Statistics 2024-02-09 Ryo Okano , Masaaki Imaizumi

The space of probability densities is an infinite-dimensional Riemannian manifold, with Riemannian metrics in two flavors: Wasserstein and Fisher--Rao. The former is pivotal in optimal mass transport (OMT), whereas the latter occurs in…

Differential Geometry · Mathematics 2017-11-21 Klas Modin

We investigate the Wasserstein distance between the empirical spectral distribution of non-Hermitian random matrices and the Circular Law. For general entry distributions, we obtain a nearly optimal rate of convergence in 1-Wasserstein…

Probability · Mathematics 2022-10-31 Jonas Jalowy

We introduce a version of Stein's method of comparison of operators specifically tailored to the problem of bounding the Wasserstein-1 distance between continuous and discrete distributions on the real line. Our approach rests on a new…

Probability · Mathematics 2023-11-03 Gilles Germain , Yvik Swan

We study the contraction in Wasserstein distance of the coordinate ascent variational inference algorithm. This is shown to hold under a transport-information inequality at the fixed points and a functional smoothness condition. The results…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-05-29 Rocco Caprio , Adrien Corenflos , Sam Power

Two geometrical structures have been extensively studied for a manifold of probability distributions. One is based on the Fisher information metric, which is invariant under reversible transformations of random variables, while the other is…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2017-10-02 Shun-ichi Amari , Ryo Karakida , Masafumi Oizumi

We introduce a framework for Newton's flows in probability space with information metrics, named information Newton's flows. Here two information metrics are considered, including both the Fisher-Rao metric and the Wasserstein-2 metric. A…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-08-06 Yifei Wang , Wuchen Li

Over the past fifteen years, the theory of Wasserstein gradient flows of convex (or, more generally, semiconvex) energies has led to advances in several areas of partial differential equations and analysis. In this work, we extend the…

Analysis of PDEs · Mathematics 2017-05-04 Katy Craig