mlsanityData to 13 Oct 2026

Training-Free Generative Sampling via Moment-Matched Score Smoothing

arXiv 2605.14276 ↗First posted 14 May 2026stat.ML cs.LGcited by 0

On the map: Diffusion models → Diffusion foundations and sampling

Abstract (arXiv)

Diffusion models generate samples by denoising along the score of a perturbed target distribution. In practice, one trains a neural diffusion model, which is computationally expensive. Recent work suggests that score matching implicitly smooths the empirical score, and that this smoothing bias promotes generalization by capturing low-dimensional data geometry. We propose moment-matched score-smoothed overdamped Langevin dynamics (MM-SOLD), a training-free interacting particle sampler that enforces the target moments throughout the sampling trajectory. We prove that, in the large-particle limit, the empirical particle density converges to a deterministic limit whose one-particle stationary marginal is a Gibbs--Boltzmann density obtained by exponentially tilting a naive score-smoothed diffusion target. The mean and covariance of this distribution agree with the empirical moments of the training data. Experiments on 2D distributions and latent-space image generation show that MM-SOLD enables fast, robust, training-free sampling on CPUs, with sample fidelity and diversity competitive with neural diffusion baselines.

Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 13 Oct 2026). Placed in Diffusion foundations and sampling, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 40 of its 59 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 14 May 2026.

Builds on

40 of 59 references.

Closest ancestors · 21

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025Diffusion Models and the Manifold Hypothesis: Log-Domain Smoothing is Geometry Adaptive2 Oct
  2. 2025Kernel-Smoothed Scores for Denoising Diffusion: A Bias-Variance Study28 May
  3. 2025Why Diffusion Models Don't Memorize: The Role of Implicit Dynamical Regularization in Training23 May
  4. 2025On the Interpolation Effect of Score Smoothing in Diffusion Models26 Feb
  5. 2024Dynamical Regimes of Diffusion Models28 Feb
  6. 2024An analysis of the noise schedule for score-based generative models7 Feb
  7. 2023Closed-Form Diffusion Models19 Oct
  8. 2023Score Approximation, Estimation and Distribution Recovery of Diffusion Models on Low-Dimensional Data14 Feb
  9. 2022Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformers19 Dec
  10. 2022Sampling is as easy as learning the score: theory for diffusion models with minimal data assumptions22 Sep
  11. 2022Convergence of denoising diffusion models under the manifold hypothesis10 Aug
  12. 2022Score-Based Generative Models Detect Manifolds2 Jun
9 more
  1. 2022Elucidating the Design Space of Diffusion-Based Generative Models1 Jun
  2. 2021High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models20 Dec
  3. 2021Score-based Generative Modeling in Latent Space10 Jun
  4. 2021Cascaded Diffusion Models for High Fidelity Image Generation30 May
  5. 2021Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesis11 May
  6. 2021Improved Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models18 Feb
  7. 2020Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations26 Nov
  8. 2020Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models6 Oct
  9. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models19 Jun

Other references · 19

  1. 2015Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamicscited by 7,023
  2. 2016Layer Normalizationcited by 5,624
  3. 2019Generative Modeling by Estimating Gradients of the Data Distributioncited by 4,077
  4. 2022Flow Straight and Fast: Learning to Generate and Transfer Data with Rectified Flowcited by 3,607
  5. 2016Gaussian Error Linear Units (GELUs)cited by 3,472
  6. 2017Progressive Growing of GANs for Improved Quality, Stability, and Variationcited by 2,975
  7. 2022Imagen Video: High Definition Video Generation with Diffusion Modelscited by 1,768
  8. 2020DiffWave: A Versatile Diffusion Model for Audio Synthesiscited by 1,348
  9. 2018Demystifying MMD GANscited by 1,277
  10. 2015Fast and Accurate Deep Network Learning by Exponential Linear Units (ELUs)cited by 1,061
  11. 2022GeoDiff: a Geometric Diffusion Model for Molecular Conformation Generationcited by 514
  12. 2020Permutation Invariant Graph Generation via Score-Based Generative Modelingcited by 266
7 more
  1. 2024An analytic theory of creativity in convolutional diffusion modelscited by 103
  2. 2022On the Implicit Bias in Deep-Learning Algorithmscited by 84
  3. 2021On Linear Stability of SGD and Input-Smoothness of Neural Networkscited by 62
  4. 2024Nuclear Norm Regularization for Deep Learningcited by 11
  5. 2025Sharp Generalization Bounds for Foundation Models with Asymmetric Randomized Low-Rank Adapterscited by 10
  6. 2025Diffusion Models on the Edge: Challenges, Optimizations, and Applicationscited by 5
  7. 2020Introducing a new high-resolution handwritten digits data set with writer characteristicscited by 4

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  2. 2025From Score Matching to Diffusion: A Fine-Grained Error Analysis in the Gaussian Setting
  3. 2024Particle Denoising Diffusion Sampler
  4. 2024A Practical Diffusion Path for Sampling
  5. 2023Denoising Diffusion Samplers
  6. 2025Posterior Sampling by Combining Diffusion Models with Annealed Langevin Dynamics
  7. 2024On the Hardness of Sampling from Mixture Distributions via Langevin Dynamics
  8. 2022Accelerating Score-based Generative Models with Preconditioned Diffusion Sampling