# Stochastic Proximal Langevin Algorithm: Potential Splitting and Nonasymptotic Rates

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.11768 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.11768/

## Key facts

- Cited by 17 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 28 May 2019.

## Built on by (most cited first, 17 of 17)

- [Proximal Interacting Particle Langevin Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.14292/) (2024)
- [Bregman Proximal Langevin Monte Carlo via Bregman--Moreau Envelopes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.04387/) (2022)
- [Towards a Better Theoretical Understanding of Independent Subnetwork Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.16484/) (2023)
- [Strictly Constrained Generative Modeling via Split Augmented Langevin Sampling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.18017/) (2025)
- [Sequential Monte Carlo approximations of Wasserstein--Fisher--Rao gradient flows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.05905/) (2025)
- [ELF: Federated Langevin Algorithms with Primal, Dual and Bidirectional Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.04622/) (2023)
- [NF-ULA: Langevin Monte Carlo with Normalizing Flow Prior for Imaging Inverse Problems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08342/) (2023)
- [Non-Log-Concave and Nonsmooth Sampling via Langevin Monte Carlo Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.15988/) (2023)
- [Convergence Error Analysis of Reflected Gradient Langevin Dynamics for Globally Optimizing Non-Convex Constrained Problems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.10215/) (2022)
- [Beyond Scores: Proximal Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.08956/) (2025)
- [An operator splitting analysis of Wasserstein--Fisher--Rao gradient flows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.18060/) (2025)
- [DC-LA: Difference-of-Convex Langevin Algorithm](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.22932/) (2026)
- [Active-Trace Complexity Bounds for Moreau--Yosida Unadjusted Langevin Sampling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.13467/) (2026)
- [A proximal gradient algorithm for composite log-concave sampling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.12461/) (2026)
- [Posterior sampling with CNN-based, Plug-and-Play regularization with applications to Post-Stack Seismic Inversion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.14595/) (2022)
- [Distributed Markov Chain Monte Carlo Sampling based on the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.15838/) (2024)
- [Nuclear Norm-Regularized Bayesian Matrix Completion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.30078/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We propose a new algorithm---Stochastic Proximal Langevin Algorithm (SPLA)---for sampling from a log concave distribution. Our method is a generalization of the Langevin algorithm to potentials expressed as the sum of one stochastic smooth term and multiple stochastic nonsmooth terms. In each iteration, our splitting technique only requires access to a stochastic gradient of the smooth term and a stochastic proximal operator for each of the nonsmooth terms. We establish nonasymptotic sublinear and linear convergence rates under convexity and strong convexity of the smooth term, respectively, expressed in terms of the KL divergence and Wasserstein distance. We illustrate the efficiency of our sampling technique through numerical simulations on a Bayesian learning task.
