Symmetry in Neural Network Parameter Spaces
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Abstract (arXiv)
Modern deep learning models are highly overparameterized, resulting in large sets of parameter configurations that yield the same outputs. A significant portion of this redundancy is explained by symmetries in the parameter space--transformations that leave the network function unchanged. These symmetries shape the loss landscape and constrain learning dynamics, offering a new lens for understanding optimization, generalization, and model complexity that complements existing theory of deep learning. This survey provides an overview of parameter space symmetry. We summarize existing literature, uncover connections between symmetry and learning theory, and identify gaps and opportunities in this emerging field.
Key facts. Cited by 36 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 117 of its 156 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 16 Jun 2025.
Builds on
117 of 156 references.
References · 117
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- 2022Model soups: averaging weights of multiple fine-tuned models improves accuracy without increasing inference timecited by 1,396
- 2018Averaging Weights Leads to Wider Optima and Better Generalizationcited by 1,209
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38 more
- 2018Loss Surfaces, Mode Connectivity, and Fast Ensembling of DNNscited by 588
- 2016Weight Normalization: A Simple Reparameterization to Accelerate Training of Deep Neural Networkscited by 543
- 2022Git Re-Basin: Merging Models modulo Permutation Symmetriescited by 471
- 2019General E(2)-Equivariant Steerable CNNscited by 446
- 2019Orthogonal Gradient Descent for Continual Learningcited by 369
- 2018Invariant and Equivariant Graph Networkscited by 346
- 2019Data-Free Quantization Through Weight Equalization and Bias Correctioncited by 336
- 2018Essentially No Barriers in Neural Network Energy Landscapecited by 330
- 2018On the Generalization of Equivariance and Convolution in Neural Networks to the Action of Compact Groupscited by 300
- 2021The Role of Permutation Invariance in Linear Mode Connectivity of Neural Networkscited by 291
- 2018On the Optimization of Deep Networks: Implicit Acceleration by Overparameterizationcited by 284
- 2017Learning Steerable Filters for Rotation Equivariant CNNscited by 194
- 2022From data to functa: Your data point is a function and you can treat it like onecited by 187
- 2018A Convergence Analysis of Gradient Descent for Deep Linear Neural Networkscited by 184
- 2018Gradient descent aligns the layers of deep linear networkscited by 182
- 2018Algorithmic Regularization in Learning Deep Homogeneous Models: Layers are Automatically Balancedcited by 177
- 2018Towards Understanding the Role of Over-Parametrization in Generalization of Neural Networkscited by 142
- 2017Equivariance Through Parameter-Sharingcited by 141
- 2021Geometry of the Loss Landscape in Overparameterized Neural Networks: Symmetries and Invariancescited by 127
- 2017L2 Regularization versus Batch and Weight Normalizationcited by 124
- 2015Path-SGD: Path-Normalized Optimization in Deep Neural Networkscited by 120
- 2020Predicting Neural Network Accuracy from Weightscited by 110
- 2023Equivariant Architectures for Learning in Deep Weight Spacescited by 107
- 2023A Brief Review of Hypernetworks in Deep Learningcited by 102
- 2020Neural Mechanics: Symmetry and Broken Conservation Laws in Deep Learning Dynamicscited by 96
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- 2021Loss Surface Simplexes for Mode Connecting Volumes and Fast Ensemblingcited by 75
- 2023Permutation Equivariant Neural Functionalscited by 70
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- 2021Geometric Deep Learning and Equivariant Neural Networkscited by 65
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- 2023Graph Metanetworks for Processing Diverse Neural Architecturescited by 57
- 2023Neural Functional Transformerscited by 52
50 most cited of 117 All 117 (JSON)
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Citing papers per year: 2025: 7; 2026: 29.
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- 2026Identifiable Equivariant Networks are Layerwise Equivariantcited by 7
- 2025Model Unmerging: Making Your Models Unmergeable for Secure Model Sharingcited by 6
- 2026Topology and Geometry of the Learning Space of ReLU Networks: Connectivity and Singularitiescited by 6
- 2026Most ReLU Networks Admit Identifiable Parameterscited by 6
- 2026DeepWeightFlow: Re-Basined Flow Matching for Generating Neural Network Weightscited by 5
- 2025Regularization Implies balancedness in the deep linear networkcited by 4
- 2026go-mHC: Direct Parameterization of Manifold-Constrained Hyper-Connections via Generalized Orthostochastic Matricescited by 4
- 2026NNiT: Width-Agnostic Neural Network Generation with Structurally Aligned Weight Spacescited by 3
- 2026A Complete Symmetry Classification of Shallow ReLU Networkscited by 3
- 2026The Symmetries of Three-Layer ReLU Networkscited by 3
- 2026Local Intrinsic Dimension of Representations Predicts Alignment and Generalization in AI Models and Human Braincited by 2
- 2026What Linear Probes Miss: Multi-View Probing for Weight-Space Learningcited by 2
24 more
- 2026On the Epistemic Uncertainty of Overparametrized Neural Networkscited by 2
- 2026Scaling Linear Mode Connectivity and Merging to Billion Parameter Pretrained Transformerscited by 2
- 2026Dead-Direction Conditioners: Gauge-Equivariant Preconditioning for Deep Networkscited by 2
- 2025Control Synthesis with Reinforcement Learning: A Modeling Perspectivecited by 1
- 2025Weight Space Representation Learning via Neural Field Adaptationcited by 1
- 2026Discovering Hidden Gems in Model Repositoriescited by 1
- 2026Complete Identification of Deep ReLU Networks through Lukasiewicz Logiccited by 1
- 2026Escape dynamics and implicit bias of one-pass SGD in overparameterized quadratic networkscited by 1
- 2026The Normalized Maximum Likelihood for Regular Non-Smooth Models: Measure-Theoretic Foundations and Geometric Samplingcited by 1
- 2026Dead Directions: Geometric Singular Learningcited by 1
- 2026PAC--Bayes Bounds on Quotient Parameter Spaces: Geometry-induced Implicit-Bias Priorscited by 1
- 2025Symmetry-Aware Fully-Amortized Optimization with Scale Equivariant Graph Metanetworkscited by 0
- 2025Symmetry-Aware Graph Metanetwork Autoencoders: Model Merging through Parameter Canonicalizationcited by 0
- 2025An Equivariance Toolbox for Learning Dynamicscited by 0
- 2026Locking Pretrained Weights via Deep Low-Rank Residual Distillationcited by 0
- 2026Beyond Structural Symmetries: Linear Mode Connectivity via Neuron Identifiabilitycited by 0
- 2026Observable- and Positional-Encoding-Dependent Symmetry Readout from Neural Network Weightscited by 0
- 2026Divisive Normalization Shapes Low-Rank Slow Manifolds for Continuous Working Memorycited by 0
- 2026Cascading Through the Hierarchy: Regularizer-Induced Feature Detection as Phase Transitions in Deep Linear Neural Networkscited by 0
- 2026Multi-Head Self Attention is a Parameter Identification Mechanismcited by 0
- 2026Discovering Symmetries in Neural Network Parameter Spacescited by 0
- 2026On Parameter Symmetries and Conservation Laws in Gradient Flowcited by 0
- 2026Training-Free Transformer Merging via Sequential Local Operator Alignmentcited by 0
- 2026Removing Information Content Does Not Certify Tamper Resistance in Open-Weight Modelscited by 0
- 2026Removing Information Content Does Not Certify Tamper Resistance in Open-Weight Models6 Oct 2026
- 2026Training-Free Transformer Merging via Sequential Local Operator Alignment5 Oct 2026
- 2026On Parameter Symmetries and Conservation Laws in Gradient Flow28 Sep 2026
- 2026Discovering Symmetries in Neural Network Parameter Spaces27 Sep 2026
- 2026Multi-Head Self Attention is a Parameter Identification Mechanism1 Sep 2026
- 2026Cascading Through the Hierarchy: Regularizer-Induced Feature Detection as Phase Transitions in Deep Linear Neural Networks6 Aug 2026
- 2026Divisive Normalization Shapes Low-Rank Slow Manifolds for Continuous Working Memory3 Aug 2026
- 2026PAC--Bayes Bounds on Quotient Parameter Spaces: Geometry-induced Implicit-Bias Priors20 Jul 2026
- 2026Observable- and Positional-Encoding-Dependent Symmetry Readout from Neural Network Weights3 Jul 2026
- 2026Dead-Direction Conditioners: Gauge-Equivariant Preconditioning for Deep Networks28 Jun 2026
- 2026Scaling Linear Mode Connectivity and Merging to Billion Parameter Pretrained Transformers22 Jun 2026
- 2026Dead Directions: Geometric Singular Learning4 Jun 2026
24 more
- 2026Beyond Structural Symmetries: Linear Mode Connectivity via Neuron Identifiability3 Jun 2026
- 2026On the Epistemic Uncertainty of Overparametrized Neural Networks24 May 2026
- 2026The Normalized Maximum Likelihood for Regular Non-Smooth Models: Measure-Theoretic Foundations and Geometric Sampling23 May 2026
- 2026What Linear Probes Miss: Multi-View Probing for Weight-Space Learning22 May 2026
- 2026The Symmetries of Three-Layer ReLU Networks18 May 2026
- 2026Locking Pretrained Weights via Deep Low-Rank Residual Distillation11 May 2026
- 2026Most ReLU Networks Admit Identifiable Parameters5 May 2026
- 2026A Complete Symmetry Classification of Shallow ReLU Networks15 Apr 2026
- 2026Escape dynamics and implicit bias of one-pass SGD in overparameterized quadratic networks3 Apr 2026
- 2026go-mHC: Direct Parameterization of Manifold-Constrained Hyper-Connections via Generalized Orthostochastic Matrices2 Apr 2026
- 2026NNiT: Width-Agnostic Neural Network Generation with Structurally Aligned Weight Spaces26 Feb 2026
- 2026Topology and Geometry of the Learning Space of ReLU Networks: Connectivity and Singularities31 Jan 2026
- 2026Complete Identification of Deep ReLU Networks through Lukasiewicz Logic30 Jan 2026
- 2026Local Intrinsic Dimension of Representations Predicts Alignment and Generalization in AI Models and Human Brain30 Jan 2026
- 2026Discovering Hidden Gems in Model Repositories29 Jan 2026
- 2026Identifiable Equivariant Networks are Layerwise Equivariant29 Jan 2026
- 2026DeepWeightFlow: Re-Basined Flow Matching for Generating Neural Network Weights8 Jan 2026
- 2025An Equivariance Toolbox for Learning Dynamics24 Dec 2025
- 2025Weight Space Representation Learning via Neural Field Adaptation1 Dec 2025
- 2025Symmetry-Aware Graph Metanetwork Autoencoders: Model Merging through Parameter Canonicalization16 Nov 2025
- 2025Regularization Implies balancedness in the deep linear network3 Nov 2025
- 2025Control Synthesis with Reinforcement Learning: A Modeling Perspective29 Oct 2025
- 2025Symmetry-Aware Fully-Amortized Optimization with Scale Equivariant Graph Metanetworks9 Oct 2025
- 2025Model Unmerging: Making Your Models Unmergeable for Secure Model Sharing1 Sep 2025
- 2026Identifiable Equivariant Networks are Layerwise Equivariantcited by 7
- 2025Model Unmerging: Making Your Models Unmergeable for Secure Model Sharingcited by 6
- 2026Topology and Geometry of the Learning Space of ReLU Networks: Connectivity and Singularitiescited by 6
- 2026Most ReLU Networks Admit Identifiable Parameterscited by 6
- 2025Regularization Implies balancedness in the deep linear networkcited by 4
- 2026go-mHC: Direct Parameterization of Manifold-Constrained Hyper-Connections via Generalized Orthostochastic Matricescited by 4
- 2026NNiT: Width-Agnostic Neural Network Generation with Structurally Aligned Weight Spacescited by 3
- 2026A Complete Symmetry Classification of Shallow ReLU Networkscited by 3
- 2026The Symmetries of Three-Layer ReLU Networkscited by 3
- 2026Local Intrinsic Dimension of Representations Predicts Alignment and Generalization in AI Models and Human Braincited by 2
- 2026On the Epistemic Uncertainty of Overparametrized Neural Networkscited by 2
- 2026Scaling Linear Mode Connectivity and Merging to Billion Parameter Pretrained Transformerscited by 2
12 most cited of 33 All 33 (JSON)
- 2026Removing Information Content Does Not Certify Tamper Resistance in Open-Weight Models6 Oct 2026
- 2026Training-Free Transformer Merging via Sequential Local Operator Alignment5 Oct 2026
- 2026On Parameter Symmetries and Conservation Laws in Gradient Flow28 Sep 2026
- 2026Discovering Symmetries in Neural Network Parameter Spaces27 Sep 2026
- 2026Multi-Head Self Attention is a Parameter Identification Mechanism1 Sep 2026
- 2026Cascading Through the Hierarchy: Regularizer-Induced Feature Detection as Phase Transitions in Deep Linear Neural Networks6 Aug 2026
- 2026Divisive Normalization Shapes Low-Rank Slow Manifolds for Continuous Working Memory3 Aug 2026
- 2026PAC--Bayes Bounds on Quotient Parameter Spaces: Geometry-induced Implicit-Bias Priors20 Jul 2026
- 2026Observable- and Positional-Encoding-Dependent Symmetry Readout from Neural Network Weights3 Jul 2026
- 2026Dead-Direction Conditioners: Gauge-Equivariant Preconditioning for Deep Networks28 Jun 2026
- 2026Scaling Linear Mode Connectivity and Merging to Billion Parameter Pretrained Transformers22 Jun 2026
- 2026Dead Directions: Geometric Singular Learning4 Jun 2026
12 newest of 33 All 33 (JSON)