mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Meta Flow Maps enable scalable reward alignment

arXiv 2601.14430 ↗First posted 20 Jan 2026stat.ML cs.LGcited by 37

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

  1. 2014Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimizationcited by 37,240
  2. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 21,076
  3. 2020Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equationscited by 9,122
  4. 2021Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesiscited by 8,255
  5. 2022Flow Straight and Fast: Learning to Generate and Transfer Data with Rectified Flowcited by 3,700
  6. 2022Diffusion Posterior Sampling for General Noisy Inverse Problemscited by 1,416
  7. 2022Building Normalizing Flows with Stochastic Interpolantscited by 995
  8. 2023Stochastic Interpolants: A Unifying Framework for Flows and Diffusionscited by 939
  9. 2019On the Variance of the Adaptive Learning Rate and Beyondcited by 772
  10. 2025Mean Flows for One-step Generative Modelingcited by 561
  11. 2023Consistency Trajectory Models: Learning Probability Flow ODE Trajectory of Diffusioncited by 459
  12. 2023Directly Fine-Tuning Diffusion Models on Differentiable Rewardscited by 448
23 more
  1. 2023Improved Techniques for Training Consistency Modelscited by 439
  2. 2024One Step Diffusion via Shortcut Modelscited by 391
  3. 2025Inference-Time Scaling for Diffusion Models beyond Scaling Denoising Stepscited by 234
  4. 2023Practical and Asymptotically Exact Conditional Sampling in Diffusion Modelscited by 232
  5. 2025A General Framework for Inference-time Scaling and Steering of Diffusion Modelscited by 224
  6. 2024D-Flow: Differentiating through Flows for Controlled Generationcited by 122
  7. 2024Iterated Denoising Energy Matching for Sampling from Boltzmann Densitiescited by 116
  8. 2025Improved Mean Flows: On the Challenges of Fastforward Generative Modelscited by 110
  9. 2024Flow map matching with stochastic interpolants: A mathematical framework for consistency modelscited by 109
  10. 2025How to build a consistency model: Learning flow maps via self-distillationcited by 103
  11. 2023Stochastic interpolants with data-dependent couplingscited by 100
  12. 2025Inference-Time Alignment in Diffusion Models with Reward-Guided Generation: Tutorial and Reviewcited by 88
  13. 2025Align Your Flow: Scaling Continuous-Time Flow Map Distillationcited by 87
  14. 2024Isambard-AI: a leadership class supercomputer optimised specifically for Artificial Intelligencecited by 62
  15. 2021Bayesian Learning via Neural Schr"odinger-F"ollmer Flowscited by 56
  16. 2025Inference-time Scaling of Diffusion Models through Classical Searchcited by 49
  17. 2024DEFT: Efficient Fine-Tuning of Diffusion Models by Learning the Generalised h-transformcited by 46
  18. 2025Dynamic Search for Inference-Time Alignment in Diffusion Modelscited by 37
  19. 2025Diffusion Tree Sampling: Scalable inference-time alignment of diffusion modelscited by 34
  20. 2025Diffusion Models without Classifier-free Guidancecited by 33
  21. 2025Distributional Diffusion Models with Scoring Rulescited by 25
  22. 2025Decoupled MeanFlow: Turning Flow Models into Flow Maps for Accelerated Samplingcited by 20
  23. 2023Nested Diffusion Processes for Anytime Image Generationcited by 5

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Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 37.

37 papers.

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  1. 2026Diamond Maps: Efficient Reward Alignment via Stochastic Flow Mapscited by 29
  2. 2026Reinforce Adjoint Matching: Scaling RL Post-Training of Diffusion and Flow-Matching Modelscited by 19
  3. 2026Scaling Categorical Flow Mapscited by 8
  4. 2026Lookahead Sample Reward Guidance for Test-Time Scaling of Diffusion Modelscited by 6
  5. 2026How to Guide Your Flow: Few-Step Alignment via Flow Map Reward Guidancecited by 6
  6. 2026Strong Stochastic Flow Mapscited by 6
  7. 2026Calibrated Test-Time Guidance for Bayesian Inferencecited by 5
  8. 2026Variational Flow Maps: Make Some Noise for One-Step Conditional Generationcited by 5
  9. 2026Flow Sampling: Learning to Sample from Unnormalized Densities via Denoising Conditional Processescited by 5
  10. 2026Ito maps for any-step SDEscited by 4
  11. 2026WIND: Weather Inverse Diffusion for Zero-Shot Atmospheric Modelingcited by 3
  12. 2026Are we really tilting? The mechanics of reward guidance in flow and diffusion modelscited by 3
25 more
  1. 2026Fast Organic Crystal Structure Prediction with Unit Cell Flow Matchingcited by 3
  2. 2026QPILOTS: Efficient Test-Time Q-Steering for Flow Policiescited by 3
  3. 2026Flow-Map GRPO: Reinforcement Learning for Few-Step Flow-Map Generators via Anchored Stochastic Compositioncited by 3
  4. 2026Measure-to-measure Regression with Transformerscited by 2
  5. 2026Accelerating Diffusion Sampling via Speculative Draft Treescited by 2
  6. 2026Diffusion Alignment Beyond KL: Variance Minimisation as Effective Policy Optimisercited by 1
  7. 2026ABC: Any-Subset Autoregression via Non-Markovian Diffusion Bridges in Continuous Time and Spacecited by 1
  8. 2026Aligning Flow Map Policies with Optimal Q-Guidancecited by 1
  9. 2026Few-step Cofolding with All-Atom Flow Mapscited by 1
  10. 2026BFMT: Enhancing Search Capabilities of Tree Sampler via Bootstrap Flow-Map Treecited by 1
  11. 2026Expanding Flow Mapscited by 1
  12. 2026OMatG-flash: An All-Atom Flow Map with Reinforce Adjoint Matching for Scalable Materials Discoverycited by 1
  13. 2026WTF?! Simulation-Free Reinforcement Learning with Wasserstein-Tilted Flow Mapscited by 1
  14. 2026DOHF: Online Diffusion Fine-tuning with Doob's h-transform Guidancecited by 1
  15. 2026Improved Distributional Diffusion Modelscited by 1
  16. 2026Sequentially-Controlled Interactive Multi-Particle Flow-Maps for Online Feedback-Driven Searchcited by 0
  17. 2026A Mean-Field Framework for Inference-Time Distributional Control of Diffusion Modelscited by 0
  18. 2026Denoising as Projection: Constrained Optimization with Gradient-Guided Diffusioncited by 0
  19. 2026FlowSGS: Improving Flow Matching Priors for Inverse Imaging with Stochastic Interpolantscited by 0
  20. 2026Interacting particle guidance for sampling reward-tilted generative priorscited by 0
  21. 2026DAWIS: Data Assimilation with Windowed Inverse Sampling via Multitask Interpolantscited by 0
  22. 2026Best-of-N Guidance for Test-time Diffusion Alignmentcited by 0
  23. 2026Langevin Flow Maps: Efficient Molecular Dynamics and Transition Path Samplingcited by 0
  24. 2026Noise, Denoise, Correct: MCMC Posterior Sampling with Diffusion Priors in Three Stepscited by 0
  25. 2026On the Design Space of Continuous Diffusion Language Modelscited by 0

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  1. 2026PG-MAP: Joint MAP Optimization for Inference-Time Alignment of Diffusion and Flow-Matching Models
  2. 2026Learnable Chernoff Baselines for Inference-Time Alignment
  3. 2026Manifold Drift in Flow Preference Optimization: A Root Cause of Reward Hacking
  4. 2026Gradient-Free Noise Optimization for Reward Alignment in Generative Models
  5. 2026The tractability landscape of diffusion alignment: regularization, rewards, and computational primitives
  6. 2026Stabilizing Consistency Training: A Flow Map Analysis and Self-Distillation
  7. 2026Test-Time Weak-to-Strong Alignment: Transferring Implicit Rewards from Weak to Strong Flow Models
  8. 2025GLASS Flows: Transition Sampling for Alignment of Flow and Diffusion Models