English

Geometry-Aware Langevin Sampling for Matrix-Valued Graph Learning

Optimization and Control 2026-05-13 v2 Differential Geometry Dynamical Systems Probability Statistics Theory Statistics Theory

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 We0W_e\succeq 0, block Laplacian L(W)L(W) , and stabilizer R0R\succ 0, the lifted precision matrix X(W)=L(W)+RS++mdX(W)=L(W)+R\in \mathbb S_{++}^{md} defines the log-determinant energy Φ(W)=logdetX(W).\Phi(W)=-\log\det X(W). We show that the Hessian of Φ\Phi is the pullback of the affine-invariant SPD metric under the map WX(W)W\mapsto X(W), 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 d=5d=5, 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}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T11:38:16.247Z