English
Related papers

Related papers: Optimizing Functionals on the Space of Probabiliti…

200 papers

We present a framework enabling variational data assimilation for gradient flows in general metric spaces, based on the minimizing movement (or Jordan-Kinderlehrer-Otto) approximation scheme. After discussing stability properties in the…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2023-01-18 Jan-F. Pietschmann , Matthias Schlottbom

While behavior cloning with flow/diffusion policies excels at learning complex skills from demonstrations, it remains vulnerable to distributional shift, and standard RL methods struggle to fine-tune these models due to their iterative…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-20 Mingyang Sun , Pengxiang Ding , Weinan Zhang , Donglin Wang

We study optimization problems whereby the optimization variable is a probability measure. Since the probability space is not a vector space, many classical and powerful methods for optimization (e.g., gradients) are of little help. Thus,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-06-18 Nicolas Lanzetti , Antonio Terpin , Florian Dörfler

This paper presents a new gradient flow dissipation geometry over non-negative and probability measures. This is motivated by a principled construction that combines the unbalanced optimal transport and interaction forces modeled by…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-11-01 Egor Gladin , Pavel Dvurechensky , Alexander Mielke , Jia-Jie Zhu

In this paper we bring together some of the key ideas and methods of two disparate fields of mathematical research, frame theory and optimal transport, using the methods of the second to answer questions posed in the first. In particular,…

Functional Analysis · Mathematics 2022-12-01 Clare Wickman , Kasso Okoudjou

We propose a framework for the design and analysis of optimization algorithms in variational quantum Monte Carlo, drawing on geometric insights into the corresponding function space. The framework translates infinite-dimensional…

Strongly Correlated Electrons · Physics 2025-07-16 Victor Armegioiu , Juan Carrasquilla , Siddhartha Mishra , Johannes Müller , Jannes Nys , Marius Zeinhofer , Hang Zhang

Policy optimization is a core component of reinforcement learning (RL), and most existing RL methods directly optimize parameters of a policy based on maximizing the expected total reward, or its surrogate. Though often achieving…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-08-10 Ruiyi Zhang , Changyou Chen , Chunyuan Li , Lawrence Carin

We propose a mathematically principled PDE gradient flow framework for distributionally robust optimization (DRO). Exploiting the recent advances in the intersection of Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampling and gradient flow theory, we show…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-05-27 Zusen Xu , Jia-Jie Zhu

We analyze some parabolic PDEs with different drift terms which are gradient flows in the Wasserstein space and consider the corresponding discrete-in-time JKO scheme. We prove with optimal transport techniques how to control the L p and L…

Analysis of PDEs · Mathematics 2019-11-26 Simone Di Marino , Filippo Santambrogio

Algorithms based on discretizing Langevin diffusion are popular tools for sampling from high-dimensional distributions. We develop novel connections between such Monte Carlo algorithms, the theory of Wasserstein gradient flow, and the…

Computation · Statistics 2019-05-13 Espen Bernton

Wasserstein gradient flows are continuous time dynamics that define curves of steepest descent to minimize an objective function over the space of probability measures (i.e., the Wasserstein space). This objective is typically a divergence…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-02-23 Adil Salim , Anna Korba , Giulia Luise

First-order methods for stochastic optimization have undeniable relevance, in part due to their pivotal role in machine learning. Variance reduction for these algorithms has become an important research topic. In contrast to common…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-09-08 Manuel Madeira , Renato Negrinho , João Xavier , Pedro M. Q. Aguiar

Gradient-flow (GF) viewpoints unify and illuminate optimization algorithms, yet most GF analyses focus on unconstrained settings. We develop a geometry-respecting framework for constrained problems by (i) reparameterizing feasible sets with…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-08-29 Valentin Leplat

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

While Bayesian neural networks (BNNs) have drawn increasing attention, their posterior inference remains challenging, due to the high-dimensional and over-parameterized nature. To address this issue, several highly flexible and scalable…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-05-10 Ziyu Wang , Tongzheng Ren , Jun Zhu , Bo Zhang

We present a novel multiscale framework for analyzing sequences of probability measures in Wasserstein spaces over Euclidean domains. Exploiting the intrinsic geometry of optimal transport, we construct a multiscale transform applicable to…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2026-04-13 Wael Mattar , Nir Sharon

A stochastic incremental subgradient algorithm for the minimization of a sum of convex functions is introduced. The method sequentially uses partial subgradient information and the sequence of partial subgradients is determined by a general…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-08-24 Rafael Massambone , Eduardo F. Costa , Elias S. Helou

We study the convergence of gradient flow for the training of deep neural networks. If Residual Neural Networks are a popular example of very deep architectures, their training constitutes a challenging optimization problem due notably to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-22 Raphaël Barboni , Gabriel Peyré , François-Xavier Vialard

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

We construct deterministic particle solutions for linear and fast diffusion equations using a nonlocal approximation. We exploit the $2$-Wasserstein gradient flow structure of the equations in order to obtain the nonlocal approximating PDEs…

Analysis of PDEs · Mathematics 2024-08-06 José Antonio Carrillo , Antonio Esposito , Jakub Skrzeczkowski , Jeremy Sheung-Him Wu