Geometric Entropy and Retrieval Phase Transitions in Continuous Thermal Dense Associative Memory

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Hauptverfasser: Petrova, Tatiana, Polyachenko, Evgeny, State, Radu
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Petrova, Tatiana
Polyachenko, Evgeny
State, Radu
author_facet Petrova, Tatiana
Polyachenko, Evgeny
State, Radu
contents We study the thermodynamic memory capacity of modern Hopfield networks (Dense Associative Memory models) with continuous states under geometric constraints, extending classical analyses of pairwise associative memory. We derive thermodynamic phase boundaries for Dense Associative Memory networks with exponential capacity $M = e^{αN}$, comparing Gaussian (LSE) and Epanechnikov (LSR) kernels. For continuous neurons on an $N$-sphere, the geometric entropy depends solely on the spherical geometry, not the kernel. In the sharp-kernel regime, the maximum theoretical capacity $α= 0.5$ is achieved at zero temperature; below this threshold, a critical line separates retrieval from non-retrieval. The two kernels differ qualitatively in their phase boundary structure: for LSE, a critical line exists at all loads $α> 0$. For LSR, the finite support introduces a threshold $α_{\text{th}}$ below which no spurious patterns contribute to the noise floor, and no critical line exists -- retrieval is perfect at any temperature. These results advance the theory of high-capacity associative memory and clarify fundamental limits of retrieval robustness in modern attention-like memory architectures.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_07401
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Geometric Entropy and Retrieval Phase Transitions in Continuous Thermal Dense Associative Memory
Petrova, Tatiana
Polyachenko, Evgeny
State, Radu
Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
Machine Learning
We study the thermodynamic memory capacity of modern Hopfield networks (Dense Associative Memory models) with continuous states under geometric constraints, extending classical analyses of pairwise associative memory. We derive thermodynamic phase boundaries for Dense Associative Memory networks with exponential capacity $M = e^{αN}$, comparing Gaussian (LSE) and Epanechnikov (LSR) kernels. For continuous neurons on an $N$-sphere, the geometric entropy depends solely on the spherical geometry, not the kernel. In the sharp-kernel regime, the maximum theoretical capacity $α= 0.5$ is achieved at zero temperature; below this threshold, a critical line separates retrieval from non-retrieval. The two kernels differ qualitatively in their phase boundary structure: for LSE, a critical line exists at all loads $α> 0$. For LSR, the finite support introduces a threshold $α_{\text{th}}$ below which no spurious patterns contribute to the noise floor, and no critical line exists -- retrieval is perfect at any temperature. These results advance the theory of high-capacity associative memory and clarify fundamental limits of retrieval robustness in modern attention-like memory architectures.
title Geometric Entropy and Retrieval Phase Transitions in Continuous Thermal Dense Associative Memory
topic Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.07401