从粒子轨迹角度揭示流匹配与无分类器引导的几何机制
Particle Dynamics of Flow Matching and Classifier-Free Guidance from a Stagewise Geometry Perspective

- 将采样过程视为粒子在数据几何中的演化,分阶段分析其吸引行为
- 发现轨迹距离衰减至O(1−t),CFG通过扩展均值和凸包保持结构
- 适用于理解生成模型采样路径的几何特性,适合研究生成建模的学者
流匹配结合无分类器引导(CFG)广泛应用于生成建模,但理论理解仍局限于分布层面。由于实际采样遵循个体轨迹,仅靠分布级保证无法完整刻画轨迹如何与数据几何互动,以及引导如何重塑该几何。为此,本文建立连续动力学与显式欧拉离散化的统一分阶段几何理论,涵盖吸引与吸收机制。当时间 t ∈ [0,1] 从噪声向数据演进时,无条件流轨迹依次被吸引至全局均值邻域、数据凸包,以及可能非凸的局部簇邻域。各阶段距离满足统一压缩估计,最终阶段距离以 O(1−t) 衰减。对于 CFG,该结构依然成立:对应的均值被外推,条件凸包被放大,接近目标簇时恢复条件流匹配的局部几何。此外,一般时间调度 a(t) 将衰减改为 O(1−a(t))。这些结果为流匹配与 CFG 在连续与离散采样中提供了统一的粒子级几何解释。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Flow matching, together with classifier-free guidance (CFG), is widely used in generative modeling, yet much of the theoretical understanding remains distribution-wise. Since practical sampling follows individual trajectories, distribution-level guarantees alone do not fully capture how trajectories interact with the data geometry or how guidance reshapes it. To overcome this limitation, we establish a unified stagewise geometric theory of attraction and absorption for both continuous dynamics and explicit Euler discretization. Specifically, with $t\in[0,1]$ running from noise to data, we show that unconditional flow trajectories are successively attracted toward a neighborhood of the global mean, the data convex hull, and a neighborhood of a possibly nonconvex local cluster. Across these stages, the corresponding distance satisfies a common contraction estimate, yielding an ${O}(1-t)$ decay of the distance in the final stage. For CFG, the same structure persists with an extrapolated mean, an inflated conditional convex hull, and, near the target cluster, the restored local geometry of conditional flow matching. We further show that a general time schedule $a(t)$ replaces the $O(1-t)$ decay by $O(1-a(t))$. Together, these results provide a unified particle-level geometric account of flow matching and CFG across continuous and discrete sampling.
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