Asymmetric Flow Models
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Abstract (arXiv)
Flow-based generation in high-dimensional spaces is difficult because velocity prediction requires modeling high-dimensional noise, even when data has strong low-rank structure. We present Asymmetric Flow Modeling (AsymFlow), a rank-asymmetric velocity parameterization that restricts noise prediction to a low-rank subspace while keeping data prediction full-dimensional. From this asymmetric prediction, AsymFlow analytically recovers the full-dimensional velocity without changing the network architecture or training/sampling procedures. On ImageNet 256×256, AsymFlow achieves a leading 1.57 FID, outperforming prior DiT/JiT-like pixel diffusion models by a large margin. AsymFlow also provides the first-ever route for finetuning pretrained latent flow models into pixel-space models: aligning the low-rank pixel subspace to the latent space gives a seamless initialization that preserves the latent model's high-level semantics and structure, so finetuning mainly improves low-level mismatches rather than relearning pixel generation. We show that the pixel AsymFlow model finetuned from FLUX.2 klein 9B establishes a new state of the art for pixel-space text-to-image generation, beating its latent base on HPSv3, DPG-Bench, and GenEval while qualitatively showing substantially improved visual realism.
Key facts. Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 64 of its 71 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 13 May 2026.
Builds on
64 of 71 references.
References · 64
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38 more
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- 2022Flow Matching for Generative Modelingcited by 5,426
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50 most cited of 64 All 64 (JSON)
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Citing papers per year: 2026: 4.
4 papers.
- 2026An Empirical Study of Training Pixel-Space Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 3
- 2026Nexus: Structured Synergy for Efficient Text-to-Image Generation using Rectified Flow Modelcited by 0
- 2026Residual-Stream Burden Shapes Representation Learning in Diffusion Transformerscited by 0
- 2026Just Align bmx: Aligning Predictions, Not Representationscited by 0
- 2026Just Align bmx: Aligning Predictions, Not Representations30 Sep 2026
- 2026Residual-Stream Burden Shapes Representation Learning in Diffusion Transformers27 Sep 2026
- 2026An Empirical Study of Training Pixel-Space Text-to-Image Diffusion Models17 Aug 2026
- 2026Nexus: Structured Synergy for Efficient Text-to-Image Generation using Rectified Flow Model17 Aug 2026
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- 2025Decoupled MeanFlow: Turning Flow Models into Flow Maps for Accelerated Sampling
- 2025Graph Flow Matching: Enhancing Image Generation with Neighbor-Aware Flow Fields
- 2026Self-Consistent Flow: Unifying Velocity and Endpoint Prediction for Rectified Flow Models
- 2026InjectFlow: Weak Guides Strong via Orthogonal Injection for Flow Matching