Action-Minimization Meets Generative Modeling: Efficient Transition Path Sampling with the Onsager-Machlup Functional

Fuente: arXiv
Salvato in:
Dettagli Bibliografici
Autori principali: Raja, Sanjeev, Šípka, Martin, Psenka, Michael, Kreiman, Tobias, Pavelka, Michal, Krishnapriyan, Aditi S.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
Soggetti:
Accesso online:
Tags: Aggiungi Tag
Nessun Tag, puoi essere il primo ad aggiungerne!!
_version_ 1866915359833980928
author Raja, Sanjeev
Šípka, Martin
Psenka, Michael
Kreiman, Tobias
Pavelka, Michal
Krishnapriyan, Aditi S.
author_facet Raja, Sanjeev
Šípka, Martin
Psenka, Michael
Kreiman, Tobias
Pavelka, Michal
Krishnapriyan, Aditi S.
contents Transition path sampling (TPS), which involves finding probable paths connecting two points on an energy landscape, remains a challenge due to the complexity of real-world atomistic systems. Current machine learning approaches use expensive, task-specific, and data-free training procedures, limiting their ability to benefit from high-quality datasets and large-scale pre-trained models. In this work, we address TPS by interpreting candidate paths as trajectories sampled from stochastic dynamics induced by the learned score function of pre-trained generative models, specifically denoising diffusion and flow matching. Under these dynamics, finding high-likelihood transition paths becomes equivalent to minimizing the Onsager-Machlup (OM) action functional. This enables us to repurpose pre-trained generative models for TPS in a zero-shot manner, in contrast with bespoke, task-specific approaches in previous work. We demonstrate our approach on varied molecular systems, obtaining diverse, physically realistic transition pathways and generalizing beyond the pre-trained model's original training dataset. Our method can be easily incorporated into new generative models, making it practically relevant as models continue to scale and improve with increased data availability. Code is available at github.com/ASK-Berkeley/OM-TPS.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_18506
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Action-Minimization Meets Generative Modeling: Efficient Transition Path Sampling with the Onsager-Machlup Functional
Raja, Sanjeev
Šípka, Martin
Psenka, Michael
Kreiman, Tobias
Pavelka, Michal
Krishnapriyan, Aditi S.
Machine Learning
Materials Science
Chemical Physics
Biomolecules
Transition path sampling (TPS), which involves finding probable paths connecting two points on an energy landscape, remains a challenge due to the complexity of real-world atomistic systems. Current machine learning approaches use expensive, task-specific, and data-free training procedures, limiting their ability to benefit from high-quality datasets and large-scale pre-trained models. In this work, we address TPS by interpreting candidate paths as trajectories sampled from stochastic dynamics induced by the learned score function of pre-trained generative models, specifically denoising diffusion and flow matching. Under these dynamics, finding high-likelihood transition paths becomes equivalent to minimizing the Onsager-Machlup (OM) action functional. This enables us to repurpose pre-trained generative models for TPS in a zero-shot manner, in contrast with bespoke, task-specific approaches in previous work. We demonstrate our approach on varied molecular systems, obtaining diverse, physically realistic transition pathways and generalizing beyond the pre-trained model's original training dataset. Our method can be easily incorporated into new generative models, making it practically relevant as models continue to scale and improve with increased data availability. Code is available at github.com/ASK-Berkeley/OM-TPS.
title Action-Minimization Meets Generative Modeling: Efficient Transition Path Sampling with the Onsager-Machlup Functional
topic Machine Learning
Materials Science
Chemical Physics
Biomolecules
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.18506