18–20 May 2026
James Clerk Maxwell Building
Europe/London timezone

Stein-optimal transport for the Signal-to-Noise Problem

18 May 2026, 14:30
30m
Higgs Centre Seminar Room (4305) (James Clerk Maxwell Building)

Higgs Centre Seminar Room (4305)

James Clerk Maxwell Building

School of Physics and Astronomy University of Edinburgh James Clerk Maxwell Building Peter Guthrie Tait Road Edinburgh EH9 3FD
Abstract for talk

Speaker

Dr Pietro Butti (SDU - University of Southern Denmark)

Description

We address the signal-to-noise problem in lattice field theory by framing it as a task in variance-optimal transport. The degradation of the signal-to-noise ratio is shown to result from poor overlap between the configuration distribution and the target distribution in a source reweighting scheme. We introduce an infinitesimal transport map and derive a perturbative expansion of the KL divergence to determine the optimal transport field. This expansion reveals a connection to Stein geometry and allows us to recast the optimisation problem as a Poisson equation. A formal solution is provided using a stochastic method, thereby establishing a link to linear response theory. Finally, we present preliminary numerical results for scalar lattice field theories.

Author

Dr Pietro Butti (SDU - University of Southern Denmark)

Co-authors

Dr Alessandro Nada (Università di Torino) Dr Guilherme Catumba (Università di Milano Bicocca) Mr Louis Spatscheck (University of Southern Denmark)

Presentation materials