mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Physics-Constrained Fine-Tuning of Flow-Matching Models for Generation and Inverse Problems

arXiv 2508.09156 ↗First posted 5 Aug 2025cs.LG cs.AI stat.APcited by 8

On the map: Diffusion models → Flow matching, time series and science

Abstract (arXiv)

We present a framework for fine-tuning flow-matching generative models to enforce physical constraints and solve inverse problems in scientific systems. Starting from a model trained on low-fidelity or observational data, we apply a differentiable post-training procedure that minimizes weak-form residuals of governing partial differential equations (PDEs), promoting physical consistency and adherence to boundary conditions without distorting the underlying learned distribution. To infer unknown physical inputs, such as source terms, material parameters, or boundary data, we augment the generative process with a learnable latent parameter predictor and propose a joint optimization strategy. The resulting model produces physically valid field solutions alongside plausible estimates of hidden parameters, effectively addressing ill-posed inverse problems in a data-driven yet physicsaware manner. We validate our method on canonical PDE benchmarks, demonstrating improved satisfaction of PDE constraints and accurate recovery of latent coefficients. Our approach bridges generative modelling and scientific inference, opening new avenues for simulation-augmented discovery and data-efficient modelling of physical systems.

Key facts. Cited by 8 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Flow matching, time series and science, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 35 of its 56 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 5 Aug 2025.

Builds on

35 of 56 references.

Closest ancestors · 10

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025Physics-Constrained Flow Matching: Sampling Generative Models with Hard Constraints4 Jun
  2. 2025Physics-Informed Distillation of Diffusion Models for PDE-Constrained Generation28 May
  3. 2025FLEX: A Backbone for Diffusion-Based Modeling of Spatio-temporal Physical Systems23 May
  4. 2025PhyDA: Physics-Guided Diffusion Models for Data Assimilation in Atmospheric Systems19 May
  5. 2024Gradient-Free Generation for Hard-Constrained Systems2 Dec
  6. 2024DiffusionPDE: Generative PDE-Solving Under Partial Observation25 Jun
  7. 2024Physics-Informed Diffusion Models21 Mar
  8. 2023Flow Matching in Latent Space17 Jul
  9. 2023Functional Flow Matching26 May
  10. 2022Flow Matching for Generative Modeling6 Oct

Other references · 25

  1. 2021Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervisioncited by 33,456
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  3. 2019PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Librarycited by 20,160
  4. 2015U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentationcited by 19,604
  5. 2021High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Modelscited by 18,694
  6. 2021Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesiscited by 8,185
  7. 2022Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformerscited by 5,931
  8. 2022Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidancecited by 5,717
  9. 2023Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 5,466
  10. 2022LAION-5B: An open large-scale dataset for training next generation image-text modelscited by 4,131
  11. 2017Deep reinforcement learning from human preferencescited by 3,846
  12. 2020Fourier Neural Operator for Parametric Partial Differential Equationscited by 2,806
13 more
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  3. 2023Pick-a-Pic: An Open Dataset of User Preferences for Text-to-Image Generationcited by 950
  4. 2023Aligning Large Multimodal Models with Factually Augmented RLHFcited by 703
  5. 2021Solving Inverse Problems in Medical Imaging with Score-Based Generative Modelscited by 514
  6. 2021U-FNO -- An enhanced Fourier neural operator-based deep-learning model for multiphase flowcited by 292
  7. 2024Adjoint Matching: Fine-tuning Flow and Diffusion Generative Models with Memoryless Stochastic Optimal Controlcited by 222
  8. 2023GenCast: Diffusion-based ensemble forecasting for medium-range weathercited by 169
  9. 2020Interacting particle solutions of Fokker-Planck equations through gradient-log-density estimationcited by 87
  10. 2024Constrained Synthesis with Projected Diffusion Modelscited by 83
  11. 2024ConFIG: Towards Conflict-free Training of Physics Informed Neural Networkscited by 43
  12. 2024ET-Flow: Equivariant Flow-Matching for Molecular Conformer Generationcited by 41
  13. 2019Supervised and Unsupervised Learning of Parameterized Color Enhancementcited by 16

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 8.

8 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026Source Anchoring for Physical Consistency in Flow Matching Models
  2. 2026The Right Measure for Physics-Constrained Generation: A Co-Area Correction for Posterior-Consistent PDE Inverse Problems
  3. 2026Guided Flow Matching for Forward and Inverse PDE Problems with Sparse Observations: Algorithm and Theory
  4. 2025Physics vs Distributions: Pareto Optimal Flow Matching with Physics Constraints
  5. 2026Composing Flow-Matching Energies with Known Physics: Generation, OOD Detection, and Inversion on PDE Fields
  6. 2026Physical Fidelity Reconstruction via Improved Consistency-Distilled Flow Matching for Dynamical Systems
  7. 2023CoCoGen: Physically-Consistent and Conditioned Score-based Generative Models for Forward and Inverse Problems
  8. 2026D-Flow SGLD: Source-Space Posterior Sampling for Scientific Inverse Problems with Flow Matching