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| Autores principales: | , , |
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| Formato: | Preprint |
| Publicado: |
2026
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| Acceso en línea: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.11557 |
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| _version_ | 1866918333547282432 |
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| author | Li, Jichu Tang, Xuan Zou, Difan |
| author_facet | Li, Jichu Tang, Xuan Zou, Difan |
| contents | A variety of widely used optimization methods like SignSGD and Muon can be interpreted as instances of steepest descent under different norm-induced geometries. In this work, we study the implicit bias of mini-batch stochastic steepest descent in multi-class classification, characterizing how batch size, momentum, and variance reduction shape the limiting max-margin behavior and convergence rates under general entry-wise and Schatten-$p$ norms. We show that without momentum, convergence only occurs with large batches, yielding a batch-dependent margin gap but the full-batch convergence rate. In contrast, momentum enables small-batch convergence through a batch-momentum trade-off, though it slows convergence. This approach provides fully explicit, dimension-free rates that improve upon prior results. Moreover, we prove that variance reduction can recover the exact full-batch implicit bias for any batch size, albeit at a slower convergence rate. Finally, we further investigate the batch-size-one steepest descent without momentum, and reveal its convergence to a fundamentally different bias via a concrete data example, which reveals a key limitation of purely stochastic updates. Overall, our unified analysis clarifies when stochastic optimization aligns with full-batch behavior, and paves the way for perform deeper explorations of the training behavior of stochastic gradient steepest descent algorithms. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_11557 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | The Implicit Bias of Steepest Descent with Mini-batch Stochastic Gradient Li, Jichu Tang, Xuan Zou, Difan Machine Learning A variety of widely used optimization methods like SignSGD and Muon can be interpreted as instances of steepest descent under different norm-induced geometries. In this work, we study the implicit bias of mini-batch stochastic steepest descent in multi-class classification, characterizing how batch size, momentum, and variance reduction shape the limiting max-margin behavior and convergence rates under general entry-wise and Schatten-$p$ norms. We show that without momentum, convergence only occurs with large batches, yielding a batch-dependent margin gap but the full-batch convergence rate. In contrast, momentum enables small-batch convergence through a batch-momentum trade-off, though it slows convergence. This approach provides fully explicit, dimension-free rates that improve upon prior results. Moreover, we prove that variance reduction can recover the exact full-batch implicit bias for any batch size, albeit at a slower convergence rate. Finally, we further investigate the batch-size-one steepest descent without momentum, and reveal its convergence to a fundamentally different bias via a concrete data example, which reveals a key limitation of purely stochastic updates. Overall, our unified analysis clarifies when stochastic optimization aligns with full-batch behavior, and paves the way for perform deeper explorations of the training behavior of stochastic gradient steepest descent algorithms. |
| title | The Implicit Bias of Steepest Descent with Mini-batch Stochastic Gradient |
| topic | Machine Learning |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.11557 |