We study probability measures induced by set functions with constraints. Such measures arise in a variety of real-world settings, where prior knowledge, resource limitations, or other pragmatic considerations impose constraints. We consider the task of rapidly sampling from such constrained measures, and develop fast Markov chain samplers for them. Our first main result is for MCMC sampling from Strongly Rayleigh (SR) measures, for which we present sharp polynomial bounds on the mixing time. As a corollary, this result yields a fast mixing sampler for Determinantal Point Processes (DPPs), yielding (to our knowledge) the first provably fast MCMC sampler for DPPs since their inception over four decades ago. Beyond SR measures, we develop MCMC samplers for probabilistic models with hard constraints and identify sufficient conditions under which their chains mix rapidly. We illustrate our claims by empirically verifying the dependence of mixing times on the key factors governing our theoretical bounds.

Coordinated multi-arm manipulation requires satisfying multiple simultaneous geometric constraints across high-dimensional configuration spaces, which poses a significant challenge for traditional planning and control methods. In this work, we propose Adaptive Diffusion Constrained Sampling (ADCS), a generative framework that flexibly integrates both equality (e.g., relative and absolute pose constraints) and structured inequality constraints (e.g., proximity to object surfaces) into an energy-based diffusion model. Equality constraints are modeled using dedicated energy networks trained on pose differences in Lie algebra space, while inequality constraints are represented via Signed Distance Functions (SDFs) and encoded into learned constraint embeddings, allowing the model to reason about complex spatial regions. A key innovation of our method is a Transformer-based architecture that learns to weight constraint-specific energy functions at inference time, enabling flexible and context-aware constraint integration. Moreover, we adopt a two-phase sampling strategy that improves precision and sample diversity by combining Langevin dynamics with resampling and density-aware re-weighting. Experimental results on dual-arm manipulation tasks show that ADCS significantly improves sample diversity and generalization across settings demanding precise coordination and adaptive constraint handling.

Recently, through a unified gradient flow perspective of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and variational inference (VI), particle-based variational inference methods (ParVIs) have been proposed that tend to combine the best of both worlds. While typical ParVIs such as Stein Variational Gradient Descent (SVGD) approximate the gradient flow within a reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS), many attempts have been made recently to replace RKHS with more expressive function spaces, such as neural networks. While successful, these methods are mainly designed for sampling from unconstrained domains. In this paper, we offer a general solution to constrained sampling by introducing a boundary condition for the gradient flow which would confine the particles within the specific domain. This allows us to propose a new functional gradient ParVI method for constrained sampling, called constrained functional gradient flow (CFG), with provable continuous-time convergence in total variation (TV).

This work considers the problem of sampling from a probability distribution known up to a normalization constant while satisfying a set of statistical constraints specified by the expected values of general nonlinear functions. This problem finds applications in, e.g., Bayesian inference, where it can constrain moments to evaluate counterfactual scenarios or enforce desiderata such as prediction fairness. Methods developed to handle support constraints, such as those based on mirror maps, barriers, and penalties, are not suited for this task. This work therefore relies on gradient descent-ascent dynamics in Wasserstein space to put forward a discrete-time primal-dual Langevin Monte Carlo algorithm (PD-LMC) that simultaneously constrains the target distribution and samples from it. We analyze the convergence of PD-LMC under standard assumptions on the target distribution and constraints, namely (strong) convexity and log-Sobolev inequalities.

Technically the paper is very strong. The results presented by the authors are, to the best of my knowledge, novel and significant. However my main criticism of the paper is that the presentation is very esoteric. The is clear already in the introduction where the authors fail to explain some of the basic notation that is central to the remaining of the paper, see (1)-(3) below. This continues throughout the paper making it hard to read for non-experts in the field, see e.g.

We consider the constrained sampling problem where the goal is to sample from a distribution $\pi(x)\propto e^{-f(x)}$ and $x$ is constrained on a convex body $\mathcal{C}\subset \mathbb{R}^d$. Motivated by penalty methods from optimization, we propose penalized Langevin Dynamics (PLD) and penalized Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (PHMC) that convert the constrained sampling problem into an unconstrained one by introducing a penalty function for constraint violations. When $f$ is smooth and the gradient is available, we show $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(d/\varepsilon^{10})$ iteration complexity for PLD to sample the target up to an $\varepsilon$-error where the error is measured in terms of the total variation distance and $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(\cdot)$ hides some logarithmic factors. For PHMC, we improve this result to $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(\sqrt{d}/\varepsilon^{7})$ when the Hessian of $f$ is Lipschitz and the boundary of $\mathcal{C}$ is sufficiently smooth. To our knowledge, these are the first convergence rate results for Hamiltonian Monte Carlo methods in the constrained sampling setting that can handle non-convex $f$ and can provide guarantees with the best dimension dependency among existing methods with deterministic gradients. We then consider the setting where unbiased stochastic gradients are available. We propose PSGLD and PSGHMC that can handle stochastic gradients without Metropolis-Hasting correction steps. When $f$ is strongly convex and smooth, we obtain an iteration complexity of $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(d/\varepsilon^{18})$ and $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(d\sqrt{d}/\varepsilon^{39})$ respectively in the 2-Wasserstein distance. For the more general case, when $f$ is smooth and non-convex, we also provide finite-time performance bounds and iteration complexity results. Finally, we test our algorithms on Bayesian LASSO regression and Bayesian constrained deep learning problems.

We study probability measures induced by set functions with constraints. Such measures arise in a variety of real-world settings, where prior knowledge, resource limitations, or other pragmatic considerations impose constraints. We consider the task of rapidly sampling from such constrained measures, and develop fast Markov chain samplers for them. Our first main result is for MCMC sampling from Strongly Rayleigh (SR) measures, for which we present sharp polynomial bounds on the mixing time. As a corollary, this result yields a fast mixing sampler for Determinantal Point Processes (DPPs), yielding (to our knowledge) the first provably fast MCMC sampler for DPPs since their inception over four decades ago.