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Lingjiong Zhu

Lingjiong Zhu appears in the imported research catalog. Authorship, coauthor and topic links are available while profile ownership is still unclaimed.

ResearcherUnclaimed source record
math.PRMachine Learningmath.OCq-fin.PRmath.NTq-fin.RMq-fin.TRComputer Visioncond-mat.stat-mechmath-phmath.COmath.MPmath.NAMethodologyNumerical Analysisq-fin.CPq-fin.MFq-fin.PMq-fin.STstat.OT

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Published work

26 published item(s)

preprint2026arXiv

Decentralized Proximal Stochastic Gradient Langevin Dynamics

We propose Decentralized Proximal Stochastic Gradient Langevin Dynamics (DE-PSGLD), a decentralized Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm for sampling from a log-concave probability distribution constrained to a convex domain. Constraints are enforced through a shared proximal regularization based on the Moreau-Yosida envelope, enabling unconstrained updates while preserving consistency with the target constrained posterior. We establish non-asymptotic convergence guarantees in the 2-Wasserstein distance for both individual agent iterates and their network averages. Our analysis shows that DE-PSGLD converges to a regularized Gibbs distribution and quantifies the bias introduced by the proximal approximation. We evaluate DE-PSGLD for different sampling problems on synthetic and real datasets. As the first decentralized approach for constrained domains, our algorithm exhibits fast posterior concentration and high predictive accuracy.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2026arXiv

Sampling non-log-concave densities via Hessian-free high-resolution dynamics

We study the problem of sampling from a target distribution $π(q)\propto e^{-U(q)}$ on $\mathbb{R}^d$, where $U$ can be non-convex, via the Hessian-free high-resolution (HFHR) dynamics, which is a second-order Langevin-type process that has $e^{-U(q)-\frac12|p|^2}$ as its unique invariant distribution, and it reduces to kinetic Langevin dynamics (KLD) as the resolution parameter $α\to0$. The existing theory for HFHR dynamics in the literature is restricted to strongly-convex $U$, although numerical experiments are promising for non-convex settings as well. We focus on studying the convergence of HFHR dynamics when $U$ can be non-convex, which bridges a gap between theory and practice. Under a standard assumption of dissipativity and smoothness on $U$, we adopt the reflection/synchronous coupling method. This yields a Lyapunov-weighted Wasserstein distance in which the HFHR semigroup is exponentially contractive for all sufficiently small $α>0$ whenever KLD is. We further show that, under an additional assumption that asymptotically $\nabla U$ has linear growth at infinity, the contraction rate for HFHR dynamics is strictly better than that of KLD, with an explicit gain. As a case study, we verify the assumptions and the resulting acceleration for three examples: a multi-well potential, Bayesian linear regression with $L^p$ regularizer and Bayesian binary classification. We conduct numerical experiments based on these examples, as well as an additional example of Bayesian logistic regression with real data processed by the neural networks, which illustrates the efficiency of the algorithms based on HFHR dynamics and verifies the acceleration and superior performance compared to KLD.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2026arXiv

Stochastic Transition-Map Distillation for Fast Probabilistic Inference

Diffusion models achieve strong generation quality, diversity, and distribution coverage, but their performance often comes with expensive inference. In this work, we propose Stochastic Transition-Map Distillation (STMD), a teacher-free framework for accelerating diffusion model inference while preserving probabilistic sample generation. In contrast to score-based diffusion models, whose denoising parametrization models the mean of the posterior distribution, STMD distills the full transition map associated with the sampling stochastic differential equation (SDE). We parameterize these SDE transitions with a conditional Mean Flow model, yielding a one- or few-step stochastic sampler that retains the transition structure of the underlying diffusion process. This perspective is especially useful for downstream tasks that require stochastic inference, such as diffusion posterior sampling, inverse problems, and energy-based fine-tuning. Compared to recent distillation methods, STMD requires no pretrained teacher, bi-level optimization, or trajectory simulation and caching, enabling efficient and scalable training. We derive convergence bounds for our method in the Wasserstein distance, providing a strong theoretical foundation for our approach, and validate STMD on various image generation examples on the MNIST, CIFAR-10, and CelebA datasets.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2023arXiv

Sensitivities of Asian options in the Black-Scholes model

We propose analytical approximations for the sensitivities (Greeks) of the Asian options in the Black-Scholes model, following from a small maturity/volatility approximation for the option prices which has the exact short maturity limit, obtained using large deviations theory. Numerical tests demonstrate good agreement of the proposed approximation with alternative numerical simulation results for cases of practical interest. We also study the qualitative properties of Asian Greeks, including new results for Rho, the sensitivity with respect to changes in the risk-free rate, and Psi, the sensitivity with respect to the dividend yield. In particular we show that the Rho of a fixed-strike Asian option and the Psi of a floating-strike Asian option can change sign.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2021arXiv

Convergence Rates of Stochastic Gradient Descent under Infinite Noise Variance

Recent studies have provided both empirical and theoretical evidence illustrating that heavy tails can emerge in stochastic gradient descent (SGD) in various scenarios. Such heavy tails potentially result in iterates with diverging variance, which hinders the use of conventional convergence analysis techniques that rely on the existence of the second-order moments. In this paper, we provide convergence guarantees for SGD under a state-dependent and heavy-tailed noise with a potentially infinite variance, for a class of strongly convex objectives. In the case where the $p$-th moment of the noise exists for some $p\in [1,2)$, we first identify a condition on the Hessian, coined '$p$-positive (semi-)definiteness', that leads to an interesting interpolation between positive semi-definite matrices ($p=2$) and diagonally dominant matrices with non-negative diagonal entries ($p=1$). Under this condition, we then provide a convergence rate for the distance to the global optimum in $L^p$. Furthermore, we provide a generalized central limit theorem, which shows that the properly scaled Polyak-Ruppert averaging converges weakly to a multivariate $α$-stable random vector. Our results indicate that even under heavy-tailed noise with infinite variance, SGD can converge to the global optimum without necessitating any modification neither to the loss function or to the algorithm itself, as typically required in robust statistics. We demonstrate the implications of our results to applications such as linear regression and generalized linear models subject to heavy-tailed data.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2020arXiv

Approximate Variational Estimation for a Model of Network Formation

We develop approximate estimation methods for exponential random graph models (ERGMs), whose likelihood is proportional to an intractable normalizing constant. The usual approach approximates this constant with Monte Carlo simulations, however convergence may be exponentially slow. We propose a deterministic method, based on a variational mean-field approximation of the ERGM's normalizing constant. We compute lower and upper bounds for the approximation error for any network size, adapting nonlinear large deviations results. This translates into bounds on the distance between true likelihood and mean-field likelihood. Monte Carlo simulations suggest that in practice our deterministic method performs better than our conservative theoretical approximation bounds imply, for a large class of models.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2020arXiv

Non-Convex Optimization via Non-Reversible Stochastic Gradient Langevin Dynamics

Stochastic Gradient Langevin Dynamics (SGLD) is a powerful algorithm for optimizing a non-convex objective, where a controlled and properly scaled Gaussian noise is added to the stochastic gradients to steer the iterates towards a global minimum. SGLD is based on the overdamped Langevin diffusion which is reversible in time. By adding an anti-symmetric matrix to the drift term of the overdamped Langevin diffusion, one gets a non-reversible diffusion that converges to the same stationary distribution with a faster convergence rate. In this paper, we study the non reversible Stochastic Gradient Langevin Dynamics (NSGLD) which is based on discretization of the non-reversible Langevin diffusion. We provide finite-time performance bounds for the global convergence of NSGLD for solving stochastic non-convex optimization problems. Our results lead to non-asymptotic guarantees for both population and empirical risk minimization problems. Numerical experiments for Bayesian independent component analysis and neural network models show that NSGLD can outperform SGLD with proper choices of the anti-symmetric matrix.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2020arXiv

Optimal Unbiased Estimation for Expected Cumulative Cost

We consider estimating an expected infinite-horizon cumulative discounted cost/reward contingent on an underlying stochastic process by Monte Carlo simulation. An unbiased estimator based on truncating the cumulative cost at a random horizon is proposed. Explicit forms for the optimal distributions of the random horizon are given, and explicit expressions for the optimal random truncation level are obtained, leading to a full analysis of the bias-variance tradeoff when comparing this new class of randomized estimators with traditional fixed truncation estimators. Moreover, we characterize when the optimal randomized estimator is preferred over a fixed truncation estimator by considering the tradeoff between bias and variance. This comparison provides guidance on when to choose randomized estimators over fixed truncation estimators in practice. Numerical experiments substantiate the theoretical results.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2016arXiv

A reduced-form model for level-1 limit order books

One popular approach to model the limit order books dynamics of the best bid and ask at level-1 is to use the reduced-form diffusion approximations. It is well known that the biggest contributing factor to the price movement is the imbalance of the best bid and ask. We investigate the data of the level-1 limit order books of a basket of stocks and study the numerical evidence of drift, correlation, volatility and their dependence on the imbalance. Based on the numerical discoveries, we develop a nonparametric discrete model for the dynamics of the best bid and ask, which can be approximated by a reduced-form model with analytical tractability that can fit the empirical data of correlation, volatilities and probability of price movement simultaneously.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2016arXiv

Discrete Sums of Geometric Brownian Motions, Annuities and Asian Options

The discrete sum of geometric Brownian motions plays an important role in modeling stochastic annuities in insurance. It also plays a pivotal role in the pricing of Asian options in mathematical finance. In this paper, we study the probability distributions of the infinite sum of geometric Brownian motions, the sum of geometric Brownian motions with geometric stopping time, and the finite sum of the geometric Brownian motions. These results are extended to the discrete sum of the exponential Lévy process. We derive tail asymptotics and compute numerically the asymptotic distribution function. We compare the results against the known results for the continuous time integral of the geometric Brownian motion up to an exponentially distributed time. The results are illustrated with numerical examples for life annuities with discrete payments, and Asian options.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2016arXiv

Limit Theorems for Empirical Density of Greatest Common Divisors

The law of large numbers for the empirical density for the pairs of uniformly distributed integers with a given greatest common divisor is a classic result in number theory. In this paper, we study the large deviations of the empirical density. We will also obtain a rate of convergence to the normal distribution for the central limit theorem. Some generalizations are provided.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2016arXiv

Short Maturity Asian Options in Local Volatility Models

We present a rigorous study of the short maturity asymptotics for Asian options with continuous-time averaging, under the assumption that the underlying asset follows a local volatility model. The asymptotics for out-of-the-money, in-the-money, and at-the-money cases are derived, considering both fixed strike and floating strike Asian options. The asymptotics for the out-of-the-money case involves a non-trivial variational problem which is solved completely. We present an analytical approximation for Asian options prices, and demonstrate good numerical agreement of the asymptotic results with the results of Monte Carlo simulations and benchmark test cases in the Black-Scholes model for option parameters relevant in practical applications.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2015arXiv

Asymptotic structure and singularities in constrained directed graphs

We study the asymptotics of large directed graphs, constrained to have certain densities of edges and/or outward $p$-stars. Our models are close cousins of exponential random graph models (ERGMs), in which edges and certain other subgraph densities are controlled by parameters. The idea of directly constraining edge and other subgraph densities comes from Radin and Sadun. Such modeling circumvents a phenomenon first made precise by Chatterjee and Diaconis: that in ERGMs it is often impossible to independently constrain edge and other subgraph densities. In all our models, we find that large graphs have either uniform or bipodal structure. When edge density (resp. $p$-star density) is fixed and $p$-star density (resp. edge density) is controlled by a parameter, we find phase transitions corresponding to a change from uniform to bipodal structure. When both edge and $p$-star density are fixed, we find only bipodal structures and no phase transition.

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preprint2015arXiv

Dynamics of Order Positions and Related Queues in a Limit Order Book

Order positions are key variables in algorithmic trading. This paper studies the limiting behavior of order positions and related queues in a limit order book. In addition to the fluid and diffusion limits for the processes, fluctuations of order positions and related queues around their fluid limits are analyzed. As a corollary, explicit analytical expressions for various quantities of interests in a limit order book are derived.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2015arXiv

Large deviations for Markovian nonlinear Hawkes processes

Hawkes process is a class of simple point processes that is self-exciting and has clustering effect. The intensity of this point process depends on its entire past history. It has wide applications in finance, neuroscience and many other fields. In this paper, we study the large deviations for nonlinear Hawkes processes. The large deviations for linear Hawkes processes has been studied by Bordenave and Torrisi. In this paper, we prove first a large deviation principle for a special class of nonlinear Hawkes processes, that is, a Markovian Hawkes process with nonlinear rate and exponential exciting function, and then generalize it to get the result for sum of exponentials exciting functions. We then provide an alternative proof for the large deviation principle for a linear Hawkes process. Finally, we use an approximation approach to prove the large deviation principle for a special class of nonlinear Hawkes processes with general exciting functions.

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preprint2015arXiv

On the growth rate of a linear stochastic recursion with Markovian dependence

We consider the linear stochastic recursion $x_{i+1} = a_{i}x_{i}+b_{i}$ where the multipliers $a_i$ are random and have Markovian dependence given by the exponential of a standard Brownian motion and $b_{i}$ are i.i.d. positive random noise independent of $a_{i}$. Using large deviations theory we study the growth rates (Lyapunov exponents) of the positive integer moments $λ_q = \lim_{n\to \infty} \frac{1}{n} \log\mathbb{E}[(x_n)^q]$ with $q\in \mathbb{Z}_+$. We show that the Lyapunov exponents $λ_q$ exist, under appropriate scaling of the model parameters, and have non-analytic behavior manifested as a phase transition. We study the properties of the phase transition and the critical exponents using both analytic and numerical methods.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2014arXiv

Asymptotics for a Class of Self-Exciting Point Processes

In this paper, we study a class of self-exciting point processes. The intensity of the point process has a nonlinear dependence on the past history and time. When a new jump occurs, the intensity increases and we expect more jumps to come. Otherwise, the intensity decays. The model is a marriage between stochasticity and dynamical system. In the short-term, stochasticity plays a major role and in the long-term, dynamical system governs the limiting behavior of the system. We study the law of large numbers, central limit theorem, large deviations and asymptotics for the tail probabilities.

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preprint2014arXiv

Central Limit Theorem for Nonlinear Hawkes Processes

Hawkes process is a self-exciting point process with clustering effect whose intensity depends on its entire past history. It has wide applications in neuroscience, finance and many other fields. In this paper, we obtain a functional central limit theorem for nonlinear Hawkes process. Under the same assumptions, we also obtain a Strassen's invariance principle, i.e. a functional law of the iterated logarithm.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2014arXiv

Limit Theorems for a Cox-Ingersoll-Ross Process with Hawkes Jumps

In this paper, we propose a stochastic process, which is a Cox-Ingersoll-Ross process with Hawkes jumps. It can be seen as a generalization of the classical Cox-Ingersoll-Ross process and the classical Hawkes process with exponential exciting function. Our model is a special case of the affine point processes. Laplace transforms and limit theorems have been obtained, including law of large numbers, central limit theorems and large deviations.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2014arXiv

Optimal Strategies for a Long-Term Static Investor

The optimal strategies for a long-term static investor are studied. Given a portfolio of a stock and a bond, we derive the optimal allocation of the capitols to maximize the expected long-term growth rate of a utility function of the wealth. When the bond has constant interest rate, three models for the underlying stock price processes are studied: Heston model, 3/2 model and jump diffusion model. We also study the optimal strategies for a portfolio in which the stock price process follows a Black-Scholes model and the bond process has a Vasicek interest rate that is correlated to the stock price.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2014arXiv

Ruin Probabilities for Risk Processes with Non-Stationary Arrivals and Subexponential Claims

In this paper, we obtain the finite-horizon and infinite-horizon ruin probability asymptotics for risk processes with claims of subexponential tails for non-stationary arrival processes that satisfy a large deviation principle. As a result, the arrival process can be dependent, non-stationary and non-renewal. We give three examples of non-stationary and non-renewal point processes: Hawkes process, Cox process with shot noise intensity and self-correcting point process. We also show some aggregate claims results for these three examples.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2013arXiv

Nonlinear Hawkes Processes

The Hawkes process is a simple point process that has long memory, clustering effect, self-exciting property and is in general non-Markovian. The future evolution of a self-exciting point process is influenced by the timing of the past events. There are applications in finance, neuroscience, genome analysis, seismology, sociology, criminology and many other fields. We first survey the known results about the theory and applications of both linear and nonlinear Hawkes processes. Then, we obtain the central limit theorem and process-level, i.e. level-3 large deviations for nonlinear Hawkes processes. The level-1 large deviation principle holds as a result of the contraction principle. We also provide an alternative variational formula for the rate function of the level-1 large deviations in the Markovian case. Next, we drop the usual assumptions on the nonlinear Hawkes process and categorize it into different regimes, i.e. sublinear, sub-critical, critical, super-critical and explosive regimes. We show the different time asymptotics in different regimes and obtain other properties as well. Finally, we study the limit theorems of linear Hawkes processes with random marks.

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