FISMO: Fisher-Structured Momentum-Orthogonalized Optimizer
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Abstract (arXiv)
Training large-scale neural networks requires solving nonconvex optimization where the choice of optimizer fundamentally determines both convergence behavior and computational efficiency. While adaptive methods like Adam have long dominated practice, the recently proposed Muon optimizer achieves superior performance through orthogonalized momentum updates that enforce isotropic geometry with uniform singular values. However, this strict isotropy discards potentially valuable curvature information encoded in gradient spectra, motivating optimization methods that balance geometric structure with adaptivity. We introduce FISMO (Fisher-Structured Momentum-Orthogonalized) optimizer, which generalizes isotropic updates to incorporate anisotropic curvature information through Fisher information geometry. By reformulating the optimizer update as a trust-region problem constrained by a Kronecker-factored Fisher metric, FISMO achieves structured preconditioning that adapts to local loss landscape geometry while maintaining computational tractability. We establish convergence guarantees for FISMO in stochastic nonconvex settings, proving an O(1/√T) rate for the expected squared gradient norm with explicit characterization of variance reduction through mini-batching. Empirical evaluation on image classification and language modeling benchmarks demonstrates that FISMO achieves superior training efficiency and final performance compared to established baselines.
Key facts. Cited by 11 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 22 of its 41 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 29 Jan 2026.
Builds on
22 of 41 references.
References · 22
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- 2023LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Modelscited by 14,132
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- 2017Deep Layer Aggregationcited by 436
- 2025Muon is Scalable for LLM Trainingcited by 428
- 2024Old Optimizer, New Norm: An Anthologycited by 193
- 2024SOAP: Improving and Stabilizing Shampoo using Adamcited by 192
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- 2025Muon Optimizes Under Spectral Norm Constraintscited by 86
10 more
- 2025A Note on the Convergence of Muoncited by 83
- 2025ASGO: Adaptive Structured Gradient Optimizationcited by 57
- 2025PolarGrad: A Class of Matrix-Gradient Optimizers from a Unifying Preconditioning Perspectivecited by 52
- 2025Muon Outperforms Adam in Tail-End Associative Memory Learningcited by 46
- 2025Isotropic Curvature Model for Understanding Deep Learning Optimization: Is Gradient Orthogonalization Optimal?cited by 37
- 2025MuonBP: Faster Muon via Block-Periodic Orthogonalizationcited by 35
- 2013The Complexity of Large-scale Convex Programming under a Linear Optimization Oraclecited by 29
- 2025Muon Optimizer Accelerates Grokkingcited by 12
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Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2026: 11.
11 papers.
- 2026The Newton-Muon Optimizercited by 18
- 2026Mousse: Rectifying the Geometry of Muon with Curvature-Aware Preconditioningcited by 17
- 2026MuonEq: Balancing Before Orthogonalization with Lightweight Equilibrationcited by 17
- 2026Symmetry-Compatible Principle for Optimizer Design: Embeddings, LM Heads, SwiGLU MLPs, and MoE Routerscited by 11
- 2026PolarAdamW: Disentangling Spectral Control and Schur Gauge-Equivariance in Matrix Optimisationcited by 2
- 2026Tight Complexity of Muon under Heavy-Tailed Noisecited by 2
- 2026MALT: Lightweight Curvature-Aware Muon via Diagonal Preconditioningcited by 1
- 2026Second-Order Muon Done Right: A Principled Marriage of Spectral Geometry and Curvaturecited by 1
- 2026Beyond the Matrix Sign: Quadratic Spectral Descentcited by 1
- 2026Rethinking Bregman Divergences in Kronecker-Factored Optimizerscited by 0
- 2026DGA-Muon: Decoupled Geometry-Aligned Adaptive Scaling for Muoncited by 0
- 2026DGA-Muon: Decoupled Geometry-Aligned Adaptive Scaling for Muon5 Oct 2026
- 2026Beyond the Matrix Sign: Quadratic Spectral Descent7 Sep 2026
- 2026Second-Order Muon Done Right: A Principled Marriage of Spectral Geometry and Curvature10 Aug 2026
- 2026MALT: Lightweight Curvature-Aware Muon via Diagonal Preconditioning5 Aug 2026
- 2026Rethinking Bregman Divergences in Kronecker-Factored Optimizers30 May 2026
- 2026Tight Complexity of Muon under Heavy-Tailed Noise18 May 2026
- 2026Symmetry-Compatible Principle for Optimizer Design: Embeddings, LM Heads, SwiGLU MLPs, and MoE Routers18 May 2026
- 2026PolarAdamW: Disentangling Spectral Control and Schur Gauge-Equivariance in Matrix Optimisation8 May 2026
- 2026The Newton-Muon Optimizer1 Apr 2026
- 2026MuonEq: Balancing Before Orthogonalization with Lightweight Equilibration30 Mar 2026
- 2026Mousse: Rectifying the Geometry of Muon with Curvature-Aware Preconditioning10 Mar 2026