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Accelerating Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampling with diffusion models

Journal Article · · Computer Physics Communications
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [2];  [1];  [1]
  1. Univ. of Adelaide, SA (Australia). CSSM and ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics
  2. Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF), Newport News, VA (United States)
  3. Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF), Newport News, VA (United States); Old Dominion Univ., Norfolk, VA (United States)

Global fits of physics models require efficient methods for exploring high-dimensional and/or multimodal posterior functions. We introduce a novel method for accelerating Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling by pairing a Metropolis-Hastings algorithm with a diffusion model that can draw global samples with the aim of approximating the posterior. We briefly review diffusion models in the context of image synthesis before providing a streamlined diffusion model tailored towards low-dimensional data arrays. We then present our adapted Metropolis-Hastings algorithm which combines local proposals with global proposals taken from a diffusion model that is regularly trained on the samples produced during the MCMC run. Our approach leads to a significant reduction in the number of likelihood evaluations required to obtain an accurate representation of the Bayesian posterior across several analytic functions, as well as for a physical example based on a global fit of parton distribution functions. Our method is extensible to other MCMC techniques, and we briefly compare our method to similar approaches based on normalising flows. A code implementation can be found at https://github.com/NickHunt-Smith/MCMC-diffusion.

Research Organization:
Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF), Newport News, VA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP); ARC Centre of Excellence
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-06OR23177
OSTI ID:
2281802
Report Number(s):
JLAB-THY--23-3900; DOE/OR/23177-7034; CE200100008
Journal Information:
Computer Physics Communications, Journal Name: Computer Physics Communications Vol. 296; ISSN 0010-4655
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (10)

A tutorial on adaptive MCMC journal December 2008
Sampling using a ‘bank’ of clues journal August 2008
Equation of State Calculations by Fast Computing Machines journal June 1953
Adaptive Monte Carlo augmented with normalizing flows journal March 2022
emcee : The MCMC Hammer
  • Foreman-Mackey, Daniel; Hogg, David W.; Lang, Dustin
  • Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Vol. 125, Issue 925 https://doi.org/10.1086/670067
journal March 2013
Monte Carlo sampling methods using Markov chains and their applications journal April 1970
Flow-based generative models for Markov chain Monte Carlo in lattice field theory journal August 2019
Sampling using SU ( N ) gauge equivariant flows journal April 2021
Determination of uncertainties in parton densities journal August 2022
Collider constraints on electroweakinos in the presence of a light gravitino journal June 2023

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