Asymptotic Freeness of Layerwise Jacobians Caused by Invariance of Multilayer Perceptron: The Haar Orthogonal Case
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Abstract (arXiv)
Free Probability Theory (FPT) provides rich knowledge for handling mathematical difficulties caused by random matrices that appear in research related to deep neural networks (DNNs), such as the dynamical isometry, Fisher information matrix, and training dynamics. FPT suits these researches because the DNN's parameter-Jacobian and input-Jacobian are polynomials of layerwise Jacobians. However, the critical assumption of asymptotic freenss of the layerwise Jacobian has not been proven completely so far. The asymptotic freeness assumption plays a fundamental role when propagating spectral distributions through the layers. Haar distributed orthogonal matrices are essential for achieving dynamical isometry. In this work, we prove asymptotic freeness of layerwise Jacobians of multilayer perceptron (MLP) in this case. A key of the proof is an invariance of the MLP. Considering the orthogonal matrices that fix the hidden units in each layer, we replace each layer's parameter matrix with itself multiplied by the orthogonal matrix, and then the MLP does not change. Furthermore, if the original weights are Haar orthogonal, the Jacobian is also unchanged by this replacement. Lastly, we can replace each weight with a Haar orthogonal random matrix independent of the Jacobian of the activation function using this key fact.
Key facts. Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 17 of its 46 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 24 Mar 2021.
Builds on
17 of 46 references.
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5 more
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Citing papers per year: 2021: 2; 2022: 0; 2023: 0; 2024: 0; 2025: 3.
5 papers.
- 2021Deformed semicircle law and concentration of nonlinear random matrices for ultra-wide neural networkscited by 21
- 2025Towards Quantifying the Hessian Structure of Neural Networkscited by 13
- 2021Free Probability for predicting the performance of feed-forward fully connected neural networkscited by 3
- 2025On the Stability of the Jacobian Matrix in Deep Neural Networkscited by 3
- 2025Gaussian Equivalence for Self-Attention: Asymptotic Spectral Analysis of Attention Matrixcited by 1
- 2025Gaussian Equivalence for Self-Attention: Asymptotic Spectral Analysis of Attention Matrix8 Oct 2025
- 2025On the Stability of the Jacobian Matrix in Deep Neural Networks10 Jun 2025
- 2025Towards Quantifying the Hessian Structure of Neural Networks5 May 2025
- 2021Free Probability for predicting the performance of feed-forward fully connected neural networks1 Nov 2021
- 2021Deformed semicircle law and concentration of nonlinear random matrices for ultra-wide neural networks20 Sep 2021