Apr 9–11, 2025
Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
America/Toronto timezone

Renormalization Group Flows: from Optimal Transport to Diffusion Models

Apr 10, 2025, 1:30 p.m.
45m
PI/4-400 - Space Room (Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics)

PI/4-400 - Space Room

Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

48
Workshop Talk

Speaker

Jordan Cotler (Harvard University)

Description

We show that Polchinski’s equation for exact renormalization group flow is equivalent to the optimal transport gradient flow of a field-theoretic relative entropy. This gives a surprising information-theoretic formulation of the exact renormalization group, expressed in the language of optimal transport. We will provide reviews of both the exact renormalization group, as well as the theory of optimal transportation. Our techniques generalize to other RG flow equations beyond Polchinski's. Moreover, we establish a connection between this more general class of RG flows and stochastic Langevin PDEs, enabling us to construct ML-based adaptive bridge samplers for lattice field theories. Finally, we will discuss forthcoming work on related methods to variationally approximate ground states of quantum field theories.

Presentation materials

There are no materials yet.

External references