characteristic function
Kernel Renormalization in Bayesian Deep Neural Networks: the Equivalent Wishart Ansatz in the Proportional Regime
Baglioni, Paolo, Keup, Christian, Zimbardo, Vincenzo, Pacelli, Rosalba, Vezzani, Alessandro, Burioni, Raffaella, Rotondo, Pietro
The scaling limit where both the size of the training set $P$ and the width $N$ of a deep neural network grow at the same rate, the so-called proportional-width regime, has been intensely studied for shallow, single-hidden-layer networks. However, extending these non-perturbative results from shallow architectures to deep non-linear networks has proven very challenging. Here we present an effective approximate approach to predict the generalization performance of Bayesian multi-layer perceptrons (MLPs) of fixed depth $L$ on arbitrary high-dimensional data. We propose an equivalent Wishart Ansatz to capture the dominant stochastic fluctuations of the hierarchical empirical kernels of MLPs. This allows us to perform a large deviation analysis for the partition function of MLPs in the proportional limit, expressed in terms of a renormalized NNGP kernel. In this description, even strong representation learning in the proportional limit is encoded in at most $L$ scalar order parameters, determined self-consistently. Extending the approach to convolutional architectures (CNNs), we identify a hierarchical local kernel renormalization mechanism, which allows to quantify more complex data-dependent transformations of the large-width kernel in CNNs due to finite-width effects. We test our effective theory against sampling experiments from the Bayesian posterior of finite deep neural networks with depths $L \sim O(10)$ and $P\sim O(10^3)$ on classic benchmark datasets, finding overall very good agreement together with two distinct types of systematic deviations.
How does feature learning reshape the function space?
Lobo, João, Loureiro, Bruno, Tran-Than, Long, Liu, Fanghui
Feature learning is widely regarded as the key mechanism distinguishing neural networks from fixed-kernel methods, yet its impact on the induced function space remains poorly understood. In this work, we precisely characterize how the function space spanned by the features of a two-layer neural network evolves during gradient descent training. We prove that, in the high-dimensional proportional regime, after a large gradient step the post-update feature distribution is well approximated by a target-dependent spiked Gaussian covariance. This induces a data-adaptive kernel that reshapes the function space and modifies its spectral structure. Our analysis reveals that feature learning can be interpreted as a distributional transformation in either parameter space or input space, equivalently as the introduction of a target-dependent kernel. In particular, it selectively amplifies eigenvalues aligned with the target direction and mixes leading eigenfunctions, coupling the top radial mode with a target-aligned quadratic harmonic. Overall, our results provide a precise function-space perspective on early-stage feature learning: rather than just rescaling a fixed kernel, gradient descent induces a data-adaptive deformation that preferentially enhances directions aligned with the signal in the data.
Sliced Inner Product Gromov-Wasserstein Distances
Gong, Xiaoyun, Rioux, Gabriel, Goldfeld, Ziv
The Gromov-Wasserstein (GW) problem provides a framework for aligning heterogeneous datasets by matching their intrinsic geometry, but its statistical and computational scaling remains an issue for high-dimensional problems. Slicing techniques offer an appealing route to scalability, but, unlike Wasserstein distances, GW problems do not generally admit closed-form solutions in one-dimension. We resolve this problem for the GW problem with inner product cost (IGW), propose a sliced IGW distance that enjoys a natural rotational invariance property, and comprehensively study its structural and computational properties. Numerical experiments validating our theory are presented, followed by applications to heterogeneous clustering of text data and language model representation comparison.
Adaptive Confidence Intervals in Efron's Gaussian Two-Groups Model
Wang, Qiaosen, Chai, Shuwen, Gao, Chao
Robust uncertainty quantification is increasingly important in modern data analysis and is often formalized under Huber's model, which allows an $\varepsilon$-fraction of arbitrary corruptions. In many experimental sciences, however, the measurement protocol is well controlled, and contamination is more plausibly introduced upstream. Motivated by this noise-oblivious nature of adversaries, we study confidence intervals for the null location parameter $θ$ in Efron's Gaussian two-groups model, where an unknown fraction $\varepsilon$ of observations have arbitrarily shifted means, but all samples share the same law of additive Gaussian measurement noise with variance $σ^2$. We characterize the minimax-optimal length among confidence intervals with a prescribed coverage level uniformly over the unknown contamination proportion and all noise-oblivious adversaries. Although prior work has shown that the minimax point estimation rate of theta does not deteriorate when $\varepsilon$ becomes unknown, our results reveal that, with a given $σ^2$, the minimax-optimal length of confidence intervals that are adaptive to unknown $\varepsilon$ is of order $σ(n^{-1/4}+\varepsilon^{1/2}/\max\{1, \log(en \varepsilon^2)\}^{1/2})$, which is polynomially worse than the optimal length when $\varepsilon$ is known. When the variance $σ^2$ is also unknown, we show a further degradation: no adaptive confidence interval can be shorter than $Ω(σn^{-1/8})$. Algorithmically, we introduce a Fourier-based certification procedure built on Carathéodory's positive-semidefiniteness constraints. By scanning candidate points and accepting those whose residual characteristic function is certifiably consistent with a Gaussian location mixture, our algorithm attains the minimax lower bound in the known-variance setting and is computable in polynomial time.
8 Supplementary Material
Calculation of T Given data D, disaggregate Y into M equal-size bins, and the m-th bin is denoted as Bm. Let m = |Bm| denote the number of samples in Bm. For distribution p 2 (V A Y) conditioned on y in Bm, pV,A|ym, pV|ym and pA|ym are denoted as the joint distribution of (V,A), marginal distribution of V and A, respectively. As detailed in Section 5.1 of [33] and Algorithm 4 of [32], Um could be calculated through U-statistic. Specifically, in [33], they consider designing kernel as ij(av)= I(Ai = a,Vi = v) I(Ai = a)I(Vi = v), for i and j-th sample in Dt.
High-Resolution Tensor-Network Fourier Methods for Exponentially Compressed Non-Gaussian Aggregate Distributions
Rodríguez-Aldavero, Juan José, García-Ripoll, Juan José
Its low-rank QTT structure arises from intrinsic spectral smoothness in continuous models, or from spectral energy concentration as the number of components D grows in discrete models. We demonstrate this on weighted sums of Bernoulli and lognormal random variables. In the latter, the approach reaches high-resolution discretizations of N = 230 frequency modes on standard hardware, far beyond the N =224 ceiling of dense implementations. These compressed representations enable efficient computation of Value at Risk (VaR) and Expected Shortfall (ES), supporting applications in quantitative finance and beyond. I. INTRODUCTION Weighted sums of independent random variables constitute a basic probabilistic model, describing macroscopic behavior arising from the aggregation of microscopic stochastic components. These models arise in a wide range of applications. Their probability distribution generally lacks a closed-form expression, and their evaluation involves multidimensional convolution integrals that are susceptible to the curse of dimensionality. Consequently, evaluating these models relies on specializednumericalmethods. Whilethese methods have been adapted for discrete settings [18, 19], they are frequently hampered by persistent Gibbs oscillations, which arise from distributional discontinuities and preclude uniform convergence [20, 21]. No existing method simultaneously achieves an accurate approximation of the exact, fully non-Gaussian target distribution while remaining scalable to larger, practically relevant system sizes. In this work, we introduce a new algorithm that combines the Fourier spectral method with tensor-network techniques.