提出AR1-ZO方法,让零阶优化高效实现高秩LoRA微调。
AR1-ZO: Topology-Aware Rank-1 Zeroth-Order Queries for High-Rank LoRA Fine-Tuning

- 按拓扑结构逐个查询低秩原子,保持查询维度与适配器秩一致
- 通过自适应缩放使信号强度不随秩增加而衰减,克服方向坍塌问题
- 无需额外计算或存储,适合资源受限场景下的高秩微调
零阶(ZO)优化可在不保存反向传播激活值的情况下实现大语言模型微调,而LoRA则提供紧凑的可训练适配器。两者结合产生秩悖论:提高LoRA秩虽增强适配器容量,但标准双点零阶方法要么扰动依赖秩的坐标数,要么在逐坐标更新下导致有限差分信号不可观测。本文指出瓶颈在于测量拓扑而非需外部子空间。LoRA已分解为匹配的秩-1原子,每个原子为完整因子-坐标块,维度为$d_ ext{out}+d_ ext{in}$。每步查询一个原子,保持适配器秩$r$的同时将单次查询扰动维度移除$r$。朴素原子级查询仍存在校准偏差:若沿用标准LoRA缩放$α/r$,有效有限差分信号随$1/r$衰减,信噪比(FD-SNR)随$1/r^2$衰减,导致固定残差评估噪声底限下的方向坍塌。AR1-ZO通过交替秩-1原子查询与拓扑感知缩放$γ=αr$,在无辅助基、激活钩子、曲率估计或额外前向查询的前提下恢复秩不变的有效信号。理论证明了原子最小性、秩无关的有效查询维度、方向坍塌与恢复机制,以及剩余秩依赖为摊销覆盖成本。在OPT和Qwen3模型上的实验验证了信号机制,并表明在标准双前向传递查询预算下,AR1-ZO是匹配预算的零阶方法中实现高秩LoRA有效的最优方案。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization enables large-language-model fine-tuning without storing backpropagation activations, while LoRA supplies compact trainable adapters. Combining them creates a rank paradox: increasing LoRA rank improves adapter capacity, but standard two-point ZO either perturbs a rank-dependent number of coordinates or, under atomwise updates, can make the finite-difference signal unobservable. This paper shows that the bottleneck is a measurement-topology problem rather than a need for an external subspace. LoRA already decomposes into matched rank-$1$ atoms, each a complete factor-coordinate block of dimension $d_\text{out}+d_\text{in}$. Querying one atom per step keeps the stored adapter rank $r$ while removing $r$ from the single-query perturbation dimension. The naive atomwise query is still miscalibrated: if it inherits canonical LoRA scaling $α/r$, the active finite-difference signal shrinks as $1/r$ and the active finite-difference signal-to-noise ratio (FD-SNR) as $1/r^2$, producing directional collapse under a fixed residual evaluation-noise floor. AR1-ZO pairs alternating rank-$1$ atom queries with topology-aware scaling $γ=αr$, restoring rank-invariant active signal without auxiliary bases, activation hooks, curvature estimates, or extra forward queries. Theory proves atom minimality, rank-independent active query dimension, directional collapse and restoration, and the remaining rank dependence as an amortized coverage cost. Experiments on OPT and Qwen3 models validate the signal mechanism and show that AR1-ZO makes high-rank LoRA effective among matched-budget ZO methods under the standard two-forward-pass query budget.
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