Dynamic guessing for Hamiltonian Monte Carlo with embedded numerical root-finding

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Groves, Teddy, Cowie, Nicholas Luke, Nielsen, Lars Keld
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Groves, Teddy
Cowie, Nicholas Luke
Nielsen, Lars Keld
author_facet Groves, Teddy
Cowie, Nicholas Luke
Nielsen, Lars Keld
contents Modern implementations of Hamiltonian Monte Carlo and related MCMC algorithms support sampling of probability functions that embed numerical root-finding algorithms, thereby allowing fitting of statistical models involving analytically intractable algebraic constraints. However the application of these models in practice is limited by the computational cost of computing large numbers of numerical solutions. We identify a key limitation of previous approaches to HMC with embedded root-finding, which require the starting guess to be the same at all points on the same simulated Hamiltonian trajectory. We demonstrate that this requirement can be relaxed, so that the starting guess depends on the previous integrator state. To choose a good guess using this information we propose two heuristics: use the previous solution and extrapolate the previous solution using implicit differentiation. Both heuristics yield substantial performance improvements on a range of representative models compared with static guessing. We also present grapevine, a JAX-based Python package providing easy access to an implementation of the No-U-Turn sampler augmented with dynamic guessing.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_15423
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Dynamic guessing for Hamiltonian Monte Carlo with embedded numerical root-finding
Groves, Teddy
Cowie, Nicholas Luke
Nielsen, Lars Keld
Computation
Modern implementations of Hamiltonian Monte Carlo and related MCMC algorithms support sampling of probability functions that embed numerical root-finding algorithms, thereby allowing fitting of statistical models involving analytically intractable algebraic constraints. However the application of these models in practice is limited by the computational cost of computing large numbers of numerical solutions. We identify a key limitation of previous approaches to HMC with embedded root-finding, which require the starting guess to be the same at all points on the same simulated Hamiltonian trajectory. We demonstrate that this requirement can be relaxed, so that the starting guess depends on the previous integrator state. To choose a good guess using this information we propose two heuristics: use the previous solution and extrapolate the previous solution using implicit differentiation. Both heuristics yield substantial performance improvements on a range of representative models compared with static guessing. We also present grapevine, a JAX-based Python package providing easy access to an implementation of the No-U-Turn sampler augmented with dynamic guessing.
title Dynamic guessing for Hamiltonian Monte Carlo with embedded numerical root-finding
topic Computation
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.15423