Meta Flow Maps enable scalable reward alignment
Not on the map. Why?
Cited by 22 in Diffusion models, but placed by its own abstract, which didn’t fit.
Abstract (arXiv)
Controlling generative models is computationally expensive. This is because optimal alignment with a reward function--whether via inference-time steering or fine-tuning--requires estimating the value function. This task demands access to the conditional posterior p1|t(x1|xt), the distribution of clean data x1 consistent with an intermediate state xt, a requirement that typically compels methods to resort to costly trajectory simulations. To address this bottleneck, we introduce Meta Flow Maps (MFMs), a framework extending consistency models and flow maps into the stochastic regime. MFMs are trained to perform stochastic one-step posterior sampling, generating arbitrarily many i.i.d. draws of clean data x1 from any intermediate state. Crucially, these samples provide a differentiable reparametrization that unlocks efficient value function estimation. We leverage this capability to solve bottlenecks in both paradigms: enabling inference-time steering without inner rollouts, and facilitating unbiased, off-policy fine-tuning to general rewards. Empirically, our single-particle steered-MFM sampler outperforms a Best-of-1000 baseline on ImageNet across multiple rewards at a fraction of the compute.
Key facts. Cited by 37 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 35 of its 55 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 20 Jan 2026.
Builds on
35 of 55 references.
References · 35
- 2014Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimizationcited by 37,240
- 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 21,076
- 2020Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equationscited by 9,122
- 2021Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesiscited by 8,255
- 2022Flow Straight and Fast: Learning to Generate and Transfer Data with Rectified Flowcited by 3,700
- 2022Diffusion Posterior Sampling for General Noisy Inverse Problemscited by 1,416
- 2022Building Normalizing Flows with Stochastic Interpolantscited by 995
- 2023Stochastic Interpolants: A Unifying Framework for Flows and Diffusionscited by 939
- 2019On the Variance of the Adaptive Learning Rate and Beyondcited by 772
- 2025Mean Flows for One-step Generative Modelingcited by 561
- 2023Consistency Trajectory Models: Learning Probability Flow ODE Trajectory of Diffusioncited by 459
- 2023Directly Fine-Tuning Diffusion Models on Differentiable Rewardscited by 448
23 more
- 2023Improved Techniques for Training Consistency Modelscited by 439
- 2024One Step Diffusion via Shortcut Modelscited by 391
- 2025Inference-Time Scaling for Diffusion Models beyond Scaling Denoising Stepscited by 234
- 2023Practical and Asymptotically Exact Conditional Sampling in Diffusion Modelscited by 232
- 2025A General Framework for Inference-time Scaling and Steering of Diffusion Modelscited by 224
- 2024D-Flow: Differentiating through Flows for Controlled Generationcited by 122
- 2024Iterated Denoising Energy Matching for Sampling from Boltzmann Densitiescited by 116
- 2025Improved Mean Flows: On the Challenges of Fastforward Generative Modelscited by 110
- 2024Flow map matching with stochastic interpolants: A mathematical framework for consistency modelscited by 109
- 2025How to build a consistency model: Learning flow maps via self-distillationcited by 103
- 2023Stochastic interpolants with data-dependent couplingscited by 100
- 2025Inference-Time Alignment in Diffusion Models with Reward-Guided Generation: Tutorial and Reviewcited by 88
- 2025Align Your Flow: Scaling Continuous-Time Flow Map Distillationcited by 87
- 2024Isambard-AI: a leadership class supercomputer optimised specifically for Artificial Intelligencecited by 62
- 2021Bayesian Learning via Neural Schr"odinger-F"ollmer Flowscited by 56
- 2025Inference-time Scaling of Diffusion Models through Classical Searchcited by 49
- 2024DEFT: Efficient Fine-Tuning of Diffusion Models by Learning the Generalised h-transformcited by 46
- 2025Dynamic Search for Inference-Time Alignment in Diffusion Modelscited by 37
- 2025Diffusion Tree Sampling: Scalable inference-time alignment of diffusion modelscited by 34
- 2025Diffusion Models without Classifier-free Guidancecited by 33
- 2025Distributional Diffusion Models with Scoring Rulescited by 25
- 2025Decoupled MeanFlow: Turning Flow Models into Flow Maps for Accelerated Samplingcited by 20
- 2023Nested Diffusion Processes for Anytime Image Generationcited by 5
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Citing papers per year: 2026: 37.
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- 2026Diamond Maps: Efficient Reward Alignment via Stochastic Flow Mapscited by 29
- 2026Reinforce Adjoint Matching: Scaling RL Post-Training of Diffusion and Flow-Matching Modelscited by 19
- 2026Scaling Categorical Flow Mapscited by 8
- 2026Lookahead Sample Reward Guidance for Test-Time Scaling of Diffusion Modelscited by 6
- 2026How to Guide Your Flow: Few-Step Alignment via Flow Map Reward Guidancecited by 6
- 2026Strong Stochastic Flow Mapscited by 6
- 2026Calibrated Test-Time Guidance for Bayesian Inferencecited by 5
- 2026Variational Flow Maps: Make Some Noise for One-Step Conditional Generationcited by 5
- 2026Flow Sampling: Learning to Sample from Unnormalized Densities via Denoising Conditional Processescited by 5
- 2026Ito maps for any-step SDEscited by 4
- 2026WIND: Weather Inverse Diffusion for Zero-Shot Atmospheric Modelingcited by 3
- 2026Are we really tilting? The mechanics of reward guidance in flow and diffusion modelscited by 3
25 more
- 2026Fast Organic Crystal Structure Prediction with Unit Cell Flow Matchingcited by 3
- 2026QPILOTS: Efficient Test-Time Q-Steering for Flow Policiescited by 3
- 2026Flow-Map GRPO: Reinforcement Learning for Few-Step Flow-Map Generators via Anchored Stochastic Compositioncited by 3
- 2026Measure-to-measure Regression with Transformerscited by 2
- 2026Accelerating Diffusion Sampling via Speculative Draft Treescited by 2
- 2026Diffusion Alignment Beyond KL: Variance Minimisation as Effective Policy Optimisercited by 1
- 2026ABC: Any-Subset Autoregression via Non-Markovian Diffusion Bridges in Continuous Time and Spacecited by 1
- 2026Aligning Flow Map Policies with Optimal Q-Guidancecited by 1
- 2026Few-step Cofolding with All-Atom Flow Mapscited by 1
- 2026BFMT: Enhancing Search Capabilities of Tree Sampler via Bootstrap Flow-Map Treecited by 1
- 2026Expanding Flow Mapscited by 1
- 2026OMatG-flash: An All-Atom Flow Map with Reinforce Adjoint Matching for Scalable Materials Discoverycited by 1
- 2026WTF?! Simulation-Free Reinforcement Learning with Wasserstein-Tilted Flow Mapscited by 1
- 2026DOHF: Online Diffusion Fine-tuning with Doob's h-transform Guidancecited by 1
- 2026Improved Distributional Diffusion Modelscited by 1
- 2026Sequentially-Controlled Interactive Multi-Particle Flow-Maps for Online Feedback-Driven Searchcited by 0
- 2026A Mean-Field Framework for Inference-Time Distributional Control of Diffusion Modelscited by 0
- 2026Denoising as Projection: Constrained Optimization with Gradient-Guided Diffusioncited by 0
- 2026FlowSGS: Improving Flow Matching Priors for Inverse Imaging with Stochastic Interpolantscited by 0
- 2026Interacting particle guidance for sampling reward-tilted generative priorscited by 0
- 2026DAWIS: Data Assimilation with Windowed Inverse Sampling via Multitask Interpolantscited by 0
- 2026Best-of-N Guidance for Test-time Diffusion Alignmentcited by 0
- 2026Langevin Flow Maps: Efficient Molecular Dynamics and Transition Path Samplingcited by 0
- 2026Noise, Denoise, Correct: MCMC Posterior Sampling with Diffusion Priors in Three Stepscited by 0
- 2026On the Design Space of Continuous Diffusion Language Modelscited by 0
- 2026On the Design Space of Continuous Diffusion Language Models9 Oct 2026
- 2026Noise, Denoise, Correct: MCMC Posterior Sampling with Diffusion Priors in Three Steps7 Oct 2026
- 2026Langevin Flow Maps: Efficient Molecular Dynamics and Transition Path Sampling5 Oct 2026
- 2026Best-of-N Guidance for Test-time Diffusion Alignment4 Oct 2026
- 2026DAWIS: Data Assimilation with Windowed Inverse Sampling via Multitask Interpolants2 Oct 2026
- 2026Interacting particle guidance for sampling reward-tilted generative priors29 Sep 2026
- 2026Improved Distributional Diffusion Models29 Sep 2026
- 2026DOHF: Online Diffusion Fine-tuning with Doob's h-transform Guidance25 Sep 2026
- 2026WTF?! Simulation-Free Reinforcement Learning with Wasserstein-Tilted Flow Maps22 Sep 2026
- 2026OMatG-flash: An All-Atom Flow Map with Reinforce Adjoint Matching for Scalable Materials Discovery22 Sep 2026
- 2026FlowSGS: Improving Flow Matching Priors for Inverse Imaging with Stochastic Interpolants17 Sep 2026
- 2026Accelerating Diffusion Sampling via Speculative Draft Trees15 Sep 2026
25 more
- 2026Denoising as Projection: Constrained Optimization with Gradient-Guided Diffusion30 Aug 2026
- 2026A Mean-Field Framework for Inference-Time Distributional Control of Diffusion Models9 Aug 2026
- 2026Expanding Flow Maps23 Jul 2026
- 2026BFMT: Enhancing Search Capabilities of Tree Sampler via Bootstrap Flow-Map Tree3 Jul 2026
- 2026Sequentially-Controlled Interactive Multi-Particle Flow-Maps for Online Feedback-Driven Search1 Jul 2026
- 2026Flow-Map GRPO: Reinforcement Learning for Few-Step Flow-Map Generators via Anchored Stochastic Composition1 Jul 2026
- 2026QPILOTS: Efficient Test-Time Q-Steering for Flow Policies11 Jun 2026
- 2026Ito maps for any-step SDEs9 Jun 2026
- 2026Few-step Cofolding with All-Atom Flow Maps7 Jun 2026
- 2026Fast Organic Crystal Structure Prediction with Unit Cell Flow Matching2 Jun 2026
- 2026Are we really tilting? The mechanics of reward guidance in flow and diffusion models1 Jun 2026
- 2026Strong Stochastic Flow Maps31 May 2026
- 2026Measure-to-measure Regression with Transformers27 May 2026
- 2026Aligning Flow Map Policies with Optimal Q-Guidance12 May 2026
- 2026Reinforce Adjoint Matching: Scaling RL Post-Training of Diffusion and Flow-Matching Models11 May 2026
- 2026Scaling Categorical Flow Maps8 May 2026
- 2026Flow Sampling: Learning to Sample from Unnormalized Densities via Denoising Conditional Processes5 May 2026
- 2026ABC: Any-Subset Autoregression via Non-Markovian Diffusion Bridges in Continuous Time and Space30 Apr 2026
- 2026How to Guide Your Flow: Few-Step Alignment via Flow Map Reward Guidance29 Apr 2026
- 2026Variational Flow Maps: Make Some Noise for One-Step Conditional Generation7 Mar 2026
- 2026Calibrated Test-Time Guidance for Bayesian Inference25 Feb 2026
- 2026Diffusion Alignment Beyond KL: Variance Minimisation as Effective Policy Optimiser12 Feb 2026
- 2026Diamond Maps: Efficient Reward Alignment via Stochastic Flow Maps5 Feb 2026
- 2026WIND: Weather Inverse Diffusion for Zero-Shot Atmospheric Modeling3 Feb 2026
- 2026Lookahead Sample Reward Guidance for Test-Time Scaling of Diffusion Models3 Feb 2026
- 2026Diamond Maps: Efficient Reward Alignment via Stochastic Flow Mapscited by 29
- 2026Reinforce Adjoint Matching: Scaling RL Post-Training of Diffusion and Flow-Matching Modelscited by 19
- 2026Scaling Categorical Flow Mapscited by 8
- 2026Lookahead Sample Reward Guidance for Test-Time Scaling of Diffusion Modelscited by 6
- 2026Strong Stochastic Flow Mapscited by 6
- 2026Calibrated Test-Time Guidance for Bayesian Inferencecited by 5
- 2026Flow Sampling: Learning to Sample from Unnormalized Densities via Denoising Conditional Processescited by 5
- 2026Are we really tilting? The mechanics of reward guidance in flow and diffusion modelscited by 3
- 2026QPILOTS: Efficient Test-Time Q-Steering for Flow Policiescited by 3
- 2026Accelerating Diffusion Sampling via Speculative Draft Treescited by 2
- 2026Diffusion Alignment Beyond KL: Variance Minimisation as Effective Policy Optimisercited by 1
- 2026Aligning Flow Map Policies with Optimal Q-Guidancecited by 1
12 most cited of 21 All 21 (JSON)
- 2026On the Design Space of Continuous Diffusion Language Models9 Oct 2026
- 2026Noise, Denoise, Correct: MCMC Posterior Sampling with Diffusion Priors in Three Steps7 Oct 2026
- 2026Best-of-N Guidance for Test-time Diffusion Alignment4 Oct 2026
- 2026DAWIS: Data Assimilation with Windowed Inverse Sampling via Multitask Interpolants2 Oct 2026
- 2026Improved Distributional Diffusion Models29 Sep 2026
- 2026OMatG-flash: An All-Atom Flow Map with Reinforce Adjoint Matching for Scalable Materials Discovery22 Sep 2026
- 2026FlowSGS: Improving Flow Matching Priors for Inverse Imaging with Stochastic Interpolants17 Sep 2026
- 2026Accelerating Diffusion Sampling via Speculative Draft Trees15 Sep 2026
- 2026Denoising as Projection: Constrained Optimization with Gradient-Guided Diffusion30 Aug 2026
- 2026A Mean-Field Framework for Inference-Time Distributional Control of Diffusion Models9 Aug 2026
- 2026QPILOTS: Efficient Test-Time Q-Steering for Flow Policies11 Jun 2026
- 2026Are we really tilting? The mechanics of reward guidance in flow and diffusion models1 Jun 2026
12 newest of 21 All 21 (JSON)
- 2026Variational Flow Maps: Make Some Noise for One-Step Conditional Generationcited by 5
- 2026Ito maps for any-step SDEscited by 4
- 2026WIND: Weather Inverse Diffusion for Zero-Shot Atmospheric Modelingcited by 3
- 2026Fast Organic Crystal Structure Prediction with Unit Cell Flow Matchingcited by 3
- 2026Measure-to-measure Regression with Transformerscited by 2
- 2026ABC: Any-Subset Autoregression via Non-Markovian Diffusion Bridges in Continuous Time and Spacecited by 1
- 2026Few-step Cofolding with All-Atom Flow Mapscited by 1
- 2026BFMT: Enhancing Search Capabilities of Tree Sampler via Bootstrap Flow-Map Treecited by 1
- 2026Expanding Flow Mapscited by 1
- 2026DOHF: Online Diffusion Fine-tuning with Doob's h-transform Guidancecited by 1
- 2026Interacting particle guidance for sampling reward-tilted generative priorscited by 0
- 2026Langevin Flow Maps: Efficient Molecular Dynamics and Transition Path Samplingcited by 0
- 2026Langevin Flow Maps: Efficient Molecular Dynamics and Transition Path Sampling5 Oct 2026
- 2026Interacting particle guidance for sampling reward-tilted generative priors29 Sep 2026
- 2026DOHF: Online Diffusion Fine-tuning with Doob's h-transform Guidance25 Sep 2026
- 2026Expanding Flow Maps23 Jul 2026
- 2026BFMT: Enhancing Search Capabilities of Tree Sampler via Bootstrap Flow-Map Tree3 Jul 2026
- 2026Ito maps for any-step SDEs9 Jun 2026
- 2026Few-step Cofolding with All-Atom Flow Maps7 Jun 2026
- 2026Fast Organic Crystal Structure Prediction with Unit Cell Flow Matching2 Jun 2026
- 2026Measure-to-measure Regression with Transformers27 May 2026
- 2026ABC: Any-Subset Autoregression via Non-Markovian Diffusion Bridges in Continuous Time and Space30 Apr 2026
- 2026Variational Flow Maps: Make Some Noise for One-Step Conditional Generation7 Mar 2026
- 2026WIND: Weather Inverse Diffusion for Zero-Shot Atmospheric Modeling3 Feb 2026
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