Flow-Based Density Ratio Estimation for Intractable Distributions with Applications in Genomics

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Antipov, Egor, Palma, Alessandro, Consoli, Lorenzo, Günnemann, Stephan, Dittadi, Andrea, Theis, Fabian J.
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Antipov, Egor
Palma, Alessandro
Consoli, Lorenzo
Günnemann, Stephan
Dittadi, Andrea
Theis, Fabian J.
author_facet Antipov, Egor
Palma, Alessandro
Consoli, Lorenzo
Günnemann, Stephan
Dittadi, Andrea
Theis, Fabian J.
contents Estimating density ratios between pairs of intractable data distributions is a core problem in probabilistic modeling, enabling principled comparisons of sample likelihoods under different data-generating processes across conditions. While exact-likelihood models such as normalizing flows offer a promising approach to density ratio estimation, naive evaluations are computationally expensive and prone to discretization errors because they require simulating each distribution's likelihood independently. In this work, we leverage condition-aware flow matching to derive a single dynamical formulation for tracking density ratios along generative trajectories. We demonstrate competitive performance on simulated benchmarks for closed-form ratio estimation, and show that our method supports versatile tasks in single-cell genomics data analysis, where likelihood-based comparisons of cellular states across experimental conditions enable treatment effect estimation and batch correction evaluation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_24201
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Flow-Based Density Ratio Estimation for Intractable Distributions with Applications in Genomics
Antipov, Egor
Palma, Alessandro
Consoli, Lorenzo
Günnemann, Stephan
Dittadi, Andrea
Theis, Fabian J.
Machine Learning
Estimating density ratios between pairs of intractable data distributions is a core problem in probabilistic modeling, enabling principled comparisons of sample likelihoods under different data-generating processes across conditions. While exact-likelihood models such as normalizing flows offer a promising approach to density ratio estimation, naive evaluations are computationally expensive and prone to discretization errors because they require simulating each distribution's likelihood independently. In this work, we leverage condition-aware flow matching to derive a single dynamical formulation for tracking density ratios along generative trajectories. We demonstrate competitive performance on simulated benchmarks for closed-form ratio estimation, and show that our method supports versatile tasks in single-cell genomics data analysis, where likelihood-based comparisons of cellular states across experimental conditions enable treatment effect estimation and batch correction evaluation.
title Flow-Based Density Ratio Estimation for Intractable Distributions with Applications in Genomics
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.24201