Information-geometric adaptive sampling for graph diffusion

arXiv cs.CV / 5/4/2026

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Key Points

  • The paper proposes an information-geometric reformulation of diffusion sampling for graph generation by viewing the sampling trajectory as a parametric curve on a Riemannian manifold.
  • It uses the Fisher-Rao metric to define intrinsic distance and derives the Drift Variation Score (DVS) as a geometry-aware measure of how quickly the underlying distribution changes.
  • A DVS-based adaptive sampler is introduced that enforces constant “informational speed” (equal arc-length on the statistical manifold), so discretization steps contribute evenly to the rate of distributional evolution.
  • Theoretical results argue that DVS captures local stiffness of sampling dynamics in the Fisher-Rao sense, and experiments on molecular and social network generation report improved structural fidelity and sampling efficiency.
  • The authors provide an implementation at https://github.com/kunzhan/DVS.

Abstract

Standard diffusion models for graph generation typically rely on uniform time-stepping, an approach that overlooks the non-homogeneous dynamics of distributional evolution on complex manifolds. In this paper, we present an information-geometric framework that reinterprets the diffusion sampling trajectory as a parametric curve on a Riemannian manifold. Our key observation is that the Fisher-Rao metric provides a principled measure of the intrinsic distance. By analyzing this metric, we derive the Drift Variation Score (DVS), a geometry-aware indicator that quantifies the instantaneous rate of distributional change. Unlike prior heuristic-based adaptive samplers, our DVS solver enforces a constant informational speed on the statistical manifold, automatically maintaining a uniform rate of distributional change along the sampling trajectory. This equal arc-length strategy ensures that each discretization step contributes equally to the information speed. Theoretical analysis verifies that DVS characterizes the local stiffness of the sampling dynamics in the Fisher-Rao sense. Experimental results on molecule and social network generation show that DVS significantly improves structural fidelity and sampling efficiency. Code is at https://github.com/kunzhan/DVS