Related papers: On gradient descent-ascent flows in metric spaces
Efficient computation of min-max problems is a central question in optimization, learning, games, and controls. Arguably the most natural algorithm is gradient-descent-ascent (GDA). However, since the 1970s, conventional wisdom has argued…
We show that the continuous-time gradient descent in Rn can be viewed as an optimal controlled evolution for a suitable action functional; a similar result holds for stochastic gradient descent. We then provide an analogous characterization…
We prove the existence of nonnegative weak solutions to a class of second and fourth order nonautonomous nonlinear evolution equations with an explicitly time-dependent mobility function posed on the whole space $\mathbb{R}^d$, for…
The paper studies a distributed gradient descent (DGD) process and considers the problem of showing that in nonconvex optimization problems, DGD typically converges to local minima rather than saddle points. The paper considers…
This paper contains two contributions in the study of optimal transport on metric graphs. Firstly, we prove a Benamou-Brenier formula for the Wasserstein distance, which establishes the equivalence of static and dynamical optimal transport.…
As the problem of minimizing functionals on the Wasserstein space encompasses many applications in machine learning, different optimization algorithms on $\mathbb{R}^d$ have received their counterpart analog on the Wasserstein space. We…
This article details a novel numerical scheme to approximate gradient flows for optimal transport (i.e. Wasserstein) metrics. These flows have proved useful to tackle theoretically and numerically non-linear diffusion equations that model…
Nonconvex-concave min-max problem arises in many machine learning applications including minimizing a pointwise maximum of a set of nonconvex functions and robust adversarial training of neural networks. A popular approach to solve this…
Min-max optimization problems arise in several key machine learning setups, including adversarial learning and generative modeling. In their general form, in absence of convexity/concavity assumptions, finding pure equilibria of the…
Stochastic Gradient Descent-Ascent (SGDA) is one of the most prominent algorithms for solving min-max optimization and variational inequalities problems (VIP) appearing in various machine learning tasks. The success of the method led to…
This study leverages the basic insight that the gradient-flow equation associated with the relative Boltzmann entropy, in relation to a Gaussian reference measure within the Hellinger-Kantorovich (HK) geometry, preserves the class of…
We introduce Wasserstein-like dynamical transport distances between vector-valued densities on the real line. The mobility function from the scalar theory is replaced by a mobility matrix, that is subject to positivity and concavity…
The $E$-optimality criterion for a regression model maximizes the smallest eigenvalue of the information matrix and becomes non-differentiable when this eigenvalue has multiplicity greater than one. Working in the $2$-Wasserstein space, we…
We study the geodesic convexity of various energy and entropy functionals restricted to (non-geodesically convex) submanifolds of Wasserstein spaces with their induced geometry. We prove a variety of convexity results by means of a simple…
We consider the problem of convergence to a saddle point of a concave-convex function via gradient dynamics. Since first introduced by Arrow, Hurwicz and Uzawa in [1] such dynamics have been extensively used in diverse areas, there are,…
Recently, Deng et al. (2026) proposed Generative Modeling via Drifting (GMD), a novel framework for generative tasks. This note presents an analysis of GMD through the lens of Wasserstein Gradient Flows (WGF), i.e., the path of steepest…
The Wasserstein space of probability measures is known for its intricate Riemannian structure, which underpins the Wasserstein geometry and enables gradient flow algorithms. However, the Wasserstein geometry may not be suitable for certain…
Existence and uniqueness of global in time measure solution for a one dimensional nonlinear aggregation equation is considered. Such a system can be written as a conservation law with a velocity field computed through a selfconsistant…
This work shows that applying Gradient Descent (GD) with a fixed step size to minimize a (possibly nonconvex) quadratic function is equivalent to running the Power Method (PM) on the gradients. The connection between GD with a fixed step…
How can we understand gradient-based training over non-convex landscapes? The edge of stability phenomenon, introduced in Cohen et al. (2021), indicates that the answer is not so simple: namely, gradient descent (GD) with large step sizes…