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Monge maps

A Monge map is a deterministic mathematical function in optimal transport theory that transforms a source probability distribution into a target probability distribution while minimizing the total cost of transportation. Formulated within the classic transport framework introduced by Gaspard Monge, this mapping assigns every individual point in the source space to a single corresponding point in the target space without splitting any mass. The optimal map minimizes an integral cost function, frequently chosen as the squared Euclidean distance, which yields the most efficient geometric rearrangement between the two probability measures. Unlike relaxed formulations that permit probabilistic mass splitting, Monge maps establish direct point-to-point correspondences, making them fundamental for constructing optimal trajectories and generative transport paths between continuous distributions.

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Multisample Flow Matching: Straightening Flows with Minibatch Couplings

Multisample Flow Matching: Straightening Flows with Minibatch Couplings

Aram-Alexandre Pooladian, Heli Ben-Hamu, Carles Domingo-Enrich, Brandon Amos, Yaron Lipman, Ricky T. Q. Chen

OrganizationsMetaNew York UniversityWeizmann Institute of Science

Why you should read this

Proposes Multisample Flow Matching, a simulation-free training framework that couples minibatch data and noise distributions to straighten probability paths, reducing gradient variance during training and enabling faster generative sampling with fewer model evaluations.

Simulation-free methods for training continuous-time generative models construct probability paths that go between noise distributions and individual data samples. Recent works, such as Flow Matching, derived paths that are optimal for each data sample. However, these algorithms rely on independent data and noise samples, and do not exploit underlying structure in the data distribution for constructing probability paths. We propose Multisample Flow Matching, a more general framework that uses non-trivial couplings between data and noise samples while satisfying the correct marginal constraints. At very small overhead costs, this generalization allows us to (i) reduce gradient variance during training, (ii) obtain straighter flows for the learned vector field, which allows us to generate high-quality samples using fewer function evaluations, and (iii) obtain transport maps with lower cost in high dimensions, which has applications beyond generative modeling. Importantly, we do so in a completely simulation-free manner with a simple minimization objective. We show that our proposed methods improve sample consistency on downsampled ImageNet data sets, and lead to better low-cost sample generation.

Added

2026-09-28