# Spectral Generative Flow Models: A Physics-Inspired Replacement for Vectorized Large Language Models

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.08893 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.08893/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 9 of its 24 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 13 Jan 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 9 of 9)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13456/) (2020)
- [Mamba: Linear-Time Sequence Modeling with Selective State Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.00752/) (2023)
- [Efficient Estimation of Word Representations in Vector Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1301.3781/) (2013)
- [Neural Ordinary Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.07366/) (2018)
- [Efficiently Modeling Long Sequences with Structured State Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.00396/) (2021)
- [Rethinking Attention with Performers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.14794/) (2020)
- [Hamiltonian Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.01563/) (2019)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We introduce Spectral Generative Flow Models (SGFMs), a physics-inspired alternative to transformer-based large language models. Instead of representing text or video as sequences of discrete tokens processed by attention, SGFMs treat generation as the evolution of a continuous field governed by constrained stochastic dynamics in a multiscale wavelet basis. This formulation replaces global attention with local operators, spectral projections, and Navier--Stokes-like transport, yielding a generative mechanism grounded in continuity, geometry, and physical structure. Our framework provides three key innovations: (i) a field-theoretic ontology in which text and video are unified as trajectories of a stochastic partial differential equation; (ii) a wavelet-domain representation that induces sparsity, scale separation, and computational efficiency; and (iii) a constrained stochastic flow that enforces stability, coherence, and uncertainty propagation. Together, these components define a generative architecture that departs fundamentally from autoregressive modeling and diffusion-based approaches. SGFMs offer a principled path toward long-range coherence, multimodal generality, and physically structured inductive bias in next-generation generative models.
