Stein Boltzmann Sampling: A Variational Approach for Global Optimization

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Serré, Gaëtan, Kalogeratos, Argyris, Vayatis, Nicolas
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2024
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author Serré, Gaëtan
Kalogeratos, Argyris
Vayatis, Nicolas
author_facet Serré, Gaëtan
Kalogeratos, Argyris
Vayatis, Nicolas
contents In this paper, we present a flow-based method for global optimization of continuous Sobolev functions, called Stein Boltzmann Sampling (SBS). SBS initializes uniformly a number of particles representing candidate solutions, then uses the Stein Variational Gradient Descent (SVGD) algorithm to sequentially and deterministically move those particles in order to approximate a target distribution whose mass is concentrated around promising areas of the domain of the optimized function. The target is chosen to be a properly parametrized Boltzmann distribution. For the purpose of global optimization, we adapt the generic SVGD theoretical framework allowing to address more general target distributions over a compact subset of $\mathbb{R}^d$, and we prove SBS's asymptotic convergence. In addition to the main SBS algorithm, we present two variants: the SBS-PF that includes a particle filtering strategy, and the SBS-HYBRID one that uses SBS or SBS-PF as a continuation after other particle- or distribution-based optimization methods. A detailed comparison with state-of-the-art methods on benchmark functions demonstrates that SBS and its variants are highly competitive, while the combination of the two variants provides the best trade-off between accuracy and computational cost.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2402_04689
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Stein Boltzmann Sampling: A Variational Approach for Global Optimization
Serré, Gaëtan
Kalogeratos, Argyris
Vayatis, Nicolas
Optimization and Control
Machine Learning
In this paper, we present a flow-based method for global optimization of continuous Sobolev functions, called Stein Boltzmann Sampling (SBS). SBS initializes uniformly a number of particles representing candidate solutions, then uses the Stein Variational Gradient Descent (SVGD) algorithm to sequentially and deterministically move those particles in order to approximate a target distribution whose mass is concentrated around promising areas of the domain of the optimized function. The target is chosen to be a properly parametrized Boltzmann distribution. For the purpose of global optimization, we adapt the generic SVGD theoretical framework allowing to address more general target distributions over a compact subset of $\mathbb{R}^d$, and we prove SBS's asymptotic convergence. In addition to the main SBS algorithm, we present two variants: the SBS-PF that includes a particle filtering strategy, and the SBS-HYBRID one that uses SBS or SBS-PF as a continuation after other particle- or distribution-based optimization methods. A detailed comparison with state-of-the-art methods on benchmark functions demonstrates that SBS and its variants are highly competitive, while the combination of the two variants provides the best trade-off between accuracy and computational cost.
title Stein Boltzmann Sampling: A Variational Approach for Global Optimization
topic Optimization and Control
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.04689