# Strong Gravitational Lensing Posterior Sampling in Pixel-Space Using Diffusion Models and Recurrent Inference Machines

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.19459 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.19459/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Inverse problems and image restoration, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 0 of its 6 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 21 Jul 2026.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Inverse problems and image restoration](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/inverse-problems-and-image-restoration/)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Modeling galaxy-galaxy strong gravitational lenses to infer the brightness of the source galaxy and the mass distribution of the foreground galaxy is computationally challenging, particularly for high-resolution, high signal-to-noise ratio observations. In this regime, high-dimensional representations of both the source and the foreground mass distribution are necessary to model the data down to the noise level. This inference problem has been challenging for both traditional and machine learning-based methods because of its high dimensionality and its non-linearity in the foreground mass distribution. We present a method to generate joint posterior samples of the source galaxy and foreground mass distribution as pixelated images conditioned on observations. The method combines diffusion-based generative modeling and recurrent inference machines. It can model realistic gravitational lensing simulations with background and foreground galaxies drawn from cosmological hydrodynamical simulations down to the noise level.