Retrieval with Multiple Query Vectors through Anomalous Pattern Detection

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Nken, Allassan Tchangmena A, Jacques, Baimam Boukar Jean, Rateike, Miriam, Cintas, Celia, Speakman, Skyler
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Nken, Allassan Tchangmena A
Jacques, Baimam Boukar Jean
Rateike, Miriam
Cintas, Celia
Speakman, Skyler
author_facet Nken, Allassan Tchangmena A
Jacques, Baimam Boukar Jean
Rateike, Miriam
Cintas, Celia
Speakman, Skyler
contents A classical vector retrieval problem typically considers a \emph{single} query embedding vector as input and retrieves the most similar embedding vectors from a vector database. However, complex reasoning and retrieval tasks frequently require \emph{multiple query vectors}, rather than a single one. In this work, we propose a retrieval method that considers multiple query vectors simultaneously and retrieves the most relevant vectors from the database using concepts from anomalous pattern detection. Specifically, our approach leverages a set of query vectors $Q$ (with $|Q|\geq 1$), and identifies the subset of vector dimensions within $Q$ that standout (anomalous) from the rest of dimensions. Next, we scan the vector database to retrieve the set of vectors that are also anomalous across the previously identified vector dimensions and return them as our retrieved set of vectors. We validate our approach on two image datasets, a text dataset, and a tabular dataset. Overall, we observe that, across most datasets, larger query sets lead to improved retrieval performance. The improvement is most pronounced when increasing the query sets from 1 to 8, while the gains become smaller beyond that.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_01965
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Retrieval with Multiple Query Vectors through Anomalous Pattern Detection
Nken, Allassan Tchangmena A
Jacques, Baimam Boukar Jean
Rateike, Miriam
Cintas, Celia
Speakman, Skyler
Machine Learning
A classical vector retrieval problem typically considers a \emph{single} query embedding vector as input and retrieves the most similar embedding vectors from a vector database. However, complex reasoning and retrieval tasks frequently require \emph{multiple query vectors}, rather than a single one. In this work, we propose a retrieval method that considers multiple query vectors simultaneously and retrieves the most relevant vectors from the database using concepts from anomalous pattern detection. Specifically, our approach leverages a set of query vectors $Q$ (with $|Q|\geq 1$), and identifies the subset of vector dimensions within $Q$ that standout (anomalous) from the rest of dimensions. Next, we scan the vector database to retrieve the set of vectors that are also anomalous across the previously identified vector dimensions and return them as our retrieved set of vectors. We validate our approach on two image datasets, a text dataset, and a tabular dataset. Overall, we observe that, across most datasets, larger query sets lead to improved retrieval performance. The improvement is most pronounced when increasing the query sets from 1 to 8, while the gains become smaller beyond that.
title Retrieval with Multiple Query Vectors through Anomalous Pattern Detection
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.01965