# DFReg: A Physics-Inspired Framework for Global Weight Distribution Regularization in Neural Networks

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.00101 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.00101/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 2 of its 4 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 30 Jun 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Batch Normalization: Accelerating Deep Network Training by Reducing Internal Covariate Shift](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1502.03167/) (2015)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We introduce DFReg, a physics-inspired regularization method for deep neural networks that operates on the global distribution of weights. Drawing from Density Functional Theory (DFT), DFReg applies a functional penalty to encourage smooth, diverse, and well-distributed weight configurations. Unlike traditional techniques such as Dropout or L2 decay, DFReg imposes global structural regularity without architectural changes or stochastic perturbations.