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Main Authors: Chung, Junhyoung, Song, Euijong, Kim, Won Hwa, Park, Gunwoong
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.02047
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author Chung, Junhyoung
Song, Euijong
Kim, Won Hwa
Park, Gunwoong
author_facet Chung, Junhyoung
Song, Euijong
Kim, Won Hwa
Park, Gunwoong
contents We introduce Convex Distance Operator Transport (CDOT), the first convex optimal transport framework that aligns distributions across heterogeneous domains by jointly preserving feature correspondence and intrinsic geometric structure. Specifically, CDOT employs an operator-based regularization that aligns aggregated distance structures by introducing distance and conditional expectation operators. Consequently, the proposed regularization improves the robustness to local geometric variations. We further prove that the resulting CDOT discrepancy is a valid pseudometric on the space of attributed compact metric-measure spaces. In addition, we characterize the relationship between CDOT and Gromov--Wasserstein (GW) through a new notion of dispersion gap, formally elucidating the geometric source of non-convexity in GW compared to the convexity of CDOT. In the finite-sample regime, we derive a non-asymptotic risk bound decomposed into optimization and statistical errors, establishing risk consistency under a globally convergent Frank--Wolfe algorithm. Experiments on synthetic point clouds, brain connectomes, and graph classification benchmarks demonstrate better performance over existing methods, with stable and reliable behavior in practice.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2606_02047
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Convex Distance Operator Transport: A Convex and Geometry-Preserving Formulation
Chung, Junhyoung
Song, Euijong
Kim, Won Hwa
Park, Gunwoong
Machine Learning
Statistics Theory
Methodology
We introduce Convex Distance Operator Transport (CDOT), the first convex optimal transport framework that aligns distributions across heterogeneous domains by jointly preserving feature correspondence and intrinsic geometric structure. Specifically, CDOT employs an operator-based regularization that aligns aggregated distance structures by introducing distance and conditional expectation operators. Consequently, the proposed regularization improves the robustness to local geometric variations. We further prove that the resulting CDOT discrepancy is a valid pseudometric on the space of attributed compact metric-measure spaces. In addition, we characterize the relationship between CDOT and Gromov--Wasserstein (GW) through a new notion of dispersion gap, formally elucidating the geometric source of non-convexity in GW compared to the convexity of CDOT. In the finite-sample regime, we derive a non-asymptotic risk bound decomposed into optimization and statistical errors, establishing risk consistency under a globally convergent Frank--Wolfe algorithm. Experiments on synthetic point clouds, brain connectomes, and graph classification benchmarks demonstrate better performance over existing methods, with stable and reliable behavior in practice.
title Convex Distance Operator Transport: A Convex and Geometry-Preserving Formulation
topic Machine Learning
Statistics Theory
Methodology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.02047