Searcharxiv⌕ Search

arXiv subjects

Zaiwen Wen

Publications and source records attributed to Zaiwen Wen.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2026

A Human-AI Collaborative Workflow for Mathematical Discovery: A Case Study in Grover-Compatible Riemannian Optimization

We investigate how large language models can be used as research tools in scientific computing while preserving mathematical rigor. We propose a human-in-the-loop workflow for interactive theorem proving and discovery with LLMs. Human experts retain control over problem formulation and assumptions, while the model searches for proofs or contradictions, proposes candidate properties and theorems, and helps construct structures and parameters that satisfy explicit constraints, supported by numerical experiments and simple verification checks. Experts treat these outputs as raw material, further refine them, and organize the results into precise statements and rigorous proofs. We instantiate this workflow in a main case study on the connection between manifold optimization and Grover's quantum search algorithm, where the pipeline identifies invariant subspaces and explores Grover-compatible retractions. The main case study uses the corresponding Grover-compatible convergence analysis, including an $O(\sqrt{N} \log(1/\varepsilon))$ PL-based bound established in the companion mathematical work, to illustrate the refinement stage of the workflow. Prompt records and reusable templates for implementing the workflow are provided. We further include a multi-oracle case study, document representative failed and corrected routes arising from this setting, and provide a structured failure-mode analysis.

cs.HC↗
arXiv2026

Non-Asymptotic Global Convergence of PPO-Clip

Reinforcement learning has gained attention for modern Large Language Model post-training. The actor-only variants of Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) are widely applied for their efficiency. These algorithms incorporate a clipping mechanism to improve stability. Besides, a regularization term, such as the reverse KL-divergence or a more general \(f\)-divergence, is introduced to control excessive deviation from a reference policy. Despite their empirical success, a rigorous theoretical understanding of the problem and the algorithm's properties is limited. This paper advances the theoretical foundations of the PPO-Clip algorithm by analyzing a deterministic actor-only PPO algorithm within the general RL setting with \(f\)-divergence regularization under the softmax policy parameterization. We derive a non-uniform Lipschitz smoothness condition and a Łojasiewicz inequality for the considered problem. Based on these properties, we establish non-asymptotic global linear convergence in value gap for the forward KL regularizer. For the reverse KL regularizer, we derive global linear convergence from any finite softmax initialization in both value gap and squared policy distance.

math.OC↗
arXiv2026

The Minimum Q-Order of BFGS with Exact Line Search Is One

Powell asked whether the smoothness assumptions underlying classical superlinear convergence force a fixed power law between adjacent iterates of exact-line-search variable-metric methods. We answer this question negatively for BFGS: within the smooth strongly convex setting, the smallest possible adjacent-iterate Q-order is one, and this boundary is attained by a single nonterminating run. In every finite dimension at least two, and for any prescribed radius and Hessian tolerance, we construct an infinitely differentiable, globally strongly convex objective that equals the standard quadratic outside the corresponding ball and whose Hessian remains within the prescribed tolerance of the identity in operator norm. The objective has its unique minimizer at the origin and identity Hessian there. Exact-line-search BFGS, initialized with the identity matrix and started inside that ball, converges Q-superlinearly, yet no fixed power greater than one controls all sufficiently late adjacent errors.

math.OC↗
arXiv2026

FaithSieve: Fine-Grained Evaluation of Math Proofs with Faithful Formal Evidence

Large language models can now generate complex, multi-step mathematical proofs, but reliably determining their correctness and localizing early logical errors remains a critical challenge. Existing evaluation approaches largely depend on model-based natural-language judgments, which often overlook local reasoning gaps. While formal theorem provers like Lean offer a path to rigorous verification, using them to evaluate informal text requires solving locality and semantic mismatches: a prover might bypass a local flaw by proving an overly broad target, or validate an auto-formalized statement that drifts from the original mathematical intent. To address this, we introduce FaithSieve, a Lean-assisted framework for fine-grained evaluation of natural-language mathematical proofs. FaithSieve decomposes coarse proof steps into local reasoning units, extracts typed proof obligations, and verifies them through a formal evaluation agent. Formal validation is gated by semantic alignment scoring, so Lean evidence is incorporated only when the formal statement faithfully preserves the context, objects, and logical form of the original claim. We construct two expert-verified datasets, ProofLoc-Olympiad and ProofLoc-University, to benchmark first-error localization. On the 350-problem Olympiad dataset, FaithSieve using a GPT-5.4 backbone achieves 81.43% exact first-error accuracy, outperforming the direct-judging baseline of 72.29%. Furthermore, on the 200-problem ProofLoc-University benchmark spanning six advanced domains, FaithSieve reaches 84.5% exact accuracy, compared to 75.0% for the direct judge. Our work demonstrates that decomposing proofs into fine-grained units and grounding them with faithful formal evidence significantly improves reliable evaluation of natural-language reasoning.

cs.AI↗
arXiv2026

A counterexample to global convergence of classical DFP under the standard strong Wolfe conditions

A long-standing open question in quasi-Newton optimization asks whether the classical Davidon--Fletcher--Powell (DFP) method converges globally on uniformly convex objectives when all accepted steps satisfy the standard weak Wolfe conditions. We show that the answer is no, even under the standard strong Wolfe conditions. Fix $0<c_1<2/3$ and $2/3\le c_2<1$. We construct a function $f\in C^2(\mathbb{R}^2)$ such that $\frac{1}{2}I\preceq\nabla^2 f(x)\preceq\frac{3}{2}I$ for all $x\in\mathbb{R}^2$. We also choose a fixed positive definite initial inverse Hessian approximation and a sequence of positive step lengths. The classical DFP iteration is well defined, and all accepted steps satisfy the standard strong Wolfe conditions, but $|\nabla f(x_k)|$ converges to a positive constant. The global Hessian condition number is at most three. The construction uses an alternating two-step DFP sequence near a one-dimensional invariant center manifold. Along this sequence, the smaller eigenvalue of the inverse Hessian approximation tends to zero. The changes in the gradient norm between cycle starts are summable, but the total rotation of the associated eigenvectors is unbounded. The accumulation points of the DFP sequence form a circle. A uniform separation bound allows us to interpolate the prescribed function values and gradients. We add smooth functions with pairwise disjoint supports to a quadratic and keep the global Hessian bounds. An affine change of variables gives an identity-initialized example with problem-dependent Hessian bounds. An orthogonal direct sum extends the result to every dimension $n\ge 2$.

math.OC↗
arXiv2026

A Fixed-Penalty Linearized Augmented Lagrangian Method with Classical Multiplier Updates

Augmented Lagrangian methods are effective for nonlinear equality-constrained optimization, but solving their nonlinear primal subproblems can be expensive. For smooth nonconvex problems with deterministic or stochastic objectives, we propose a nonlinear-residual linearized augmented Lagrangian method (NR-LALM) that replaces this subproblem by a regularized Gauss-Newton-type step while retaining the classical multiplier update based on the nonlinear constraint residual. The resulting step is computed from one symmetric positive-definite linear system, but the mismatch between the linearized primal model and the nonlinear-residual update produces a quadratic constraint-linearization error in the multiplier identity. We show that this error can be controlled under local regularity; multiplier boundedness and trajectory localization are derived rather than assumed. With fixed, accuracy-independent parameters, deterministic NR-LALM finds an $\varepsilon$-approximate Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) pair in $O(\varepsilon^{-2})$ iterations and first-order oracle evaluations. For stochastic objectives, a projected stochastic path-integrated differential estimator with safeguarded restarts requires, in expectation, $O(\varepsilon^{-3})$ stochastic-gradient evaluations and $O(\varepsilon^{-2})$ constraint and Jacobian evaluations. Compactness and a Kurdyka-Lojasiewicz condition further yield finite-length convergence of the deterministic primal-dual sequence. An optional minimum-norm second-order correction reduces the constraint-linearization error from second to fourth order without changing the complexity orders. All theoretical results are formalized in Lean 4. Numerical experiments confirm the predicted error orders and show favorable performance on high-dimensional deterministic and stochastic problems.

math.OC↗
arXiv2026

ReasFlow: Assisting Reasoning-Centric Scientific Discovery in Applied Mathematics via a Knowledge-Based Multi-Agent System

Recent advances in Large Language Models have fueled autonomous AI agents capable of tackling complex scientific tasks, yet existing automated research systems remain predominantly focused on empirically driven domains with quantitative benchmarks, leaving theory-driven discovery, particularly in mathematically grounded disciplines requiring rigorous proofs and synthesis of domain knowledge, largely underexplored. Key challenges include the difficulty of verifying theoretical reasoning at scale, insufficient reasoning ability for autonomous frontier exploration, and a scarcity of procedural heuristics in the literature. We introduce ReasFlow, an end-to-end autonomous agent system for reasoning-centric scientific discovery that operationalizes a collaborative paradigm where the human expert acts as Principal Investigator while the agent executes rigorous derivations as a capable graduate student. ReasFlow incorporates (i) a robust internal verification loop that audits logical coherence and corrects fundamental errors prior to human inspection, and (ii) an automated knowledge retrieval and self-improvement mechanism that proactively surfaces both declarative facts and overlooked procedural heuristics, substantially reducing expert intervention. The system unifies literature synthesis, algorithm design, theorem proving, experimentation, and manuscript preparation in a single system. Deployed to autonomously generate five complete research papers with rigorous theoretical and empirical content from minimal prompts, ReasFlow consistently achieves the highest evaluation scores among state-of-the-art open-access baselines under a curated LLM-based review rubric. ReasFlow is publicly accessible via the ReasLab platform, providing a collaborative workspace for AI-assisted theoretical research. Github repo: https://github.com/reaslab/ReasFlow.git.

cs.AI↗
arXiv2026

MECA: A Mechanism-Centered Agent for Constructing Well-Specified and Valuable Mathematical Conjectures

Automatically constructing well-specified and valuable mathematical conjectures remains a central challenge in AI-assisted mathematical discovery. Many existing open problems and conjectures are often too broad, underspecified, or difficult to connect to plausible proof or refutation strategies. We view a mathematical mechanism as a structure or reasoning principle that connects the assumptions of a candidate problem to its target conclusion, such as an inequality, invariant, decomposition, or reduction to an intermediate claim. We present MECA (MEchanism-centered Conjecture Agent), a multi-agent framework that constructs conjectures by jointly developing candidate statements and their supporting mechanisms. Explorer agents propose mechanisms, test how they apply, and revise the candidate conjecture accordingly, while critic agents assess their mathematical validity and research value. Their feedback guides changes to the assumptions, scope, and conclusion. Through this process, MECA transforms broad research directions into precise conjectures with substantive mathematical support while retaining a clearly identified unresolved core. We evaluate MECA in two complementary settings. First, we compare it with a generate-and-revise baseline on reconstructing preselected target-paper conclusions from target-conditioned but article-blind source materials. Second, we construct 100 semi-open problems from literature-derived seeds and existing open problems and evaluate them through independent proof and refutation attempts by automated provers. Our results indicate that mechanism-centered refinement produces well-specified and research-worthy conjectures that remain challenging for current automated provers.

cs.AI↗
arXiv2026

Retraction-Free Optimization over the Stiefel Manifold for the LoRA Fine-Tuning

Optimization over the Stiefel manifold plays a significant role in various machine learning tasks. Existing methods either use the retraction operators, requiring costly orthonormalization for large-scale matrices, or employ landing methods that rely on careful step size selection and penalty parameter tuning. To address these challenges, we propose a retraction-free and penalty parameter-free algorithm that directly lands on the manifold. By leveraging the strongly-convex-like property of the quadratic penalty function and the proximal smoothness of the Stiefel manifold, we establish global convergence guarantees with the best-known iteration complexities under both constant and diminishing step sizes. Then, we reformulate the low-rank adaptation (LoRA) fine-tuning problem for large language models as a manifold optimization problem, introducing Manifold-LoRA for geometry-accelerated adaptation. This approach employs the proposed landing technique and a carefully designed step size strategy to accelerate the training process. Numerical experiments on benchmark datasets demonstrate the efficiency and strong downstream performance of the proposed method.

cs.LG↗
arXiv2026

A Unified Framework for Formalizing Matrix Decomposition Proofs

Existence proofs for many matrix decompositions share a recursive routine: a local transformation prepares the matrix, a slice is selected, a recursive solution is obtained, and the result is lifted and transported back. Formalizing this routine uniformly in dependent type theory is difficult because recursive subproblems may change index types, and reconstruction must preserve structural predicates across block embeddings and reindexings. We develop a Lean~4 framework that separates decomposition schemas, transformations, reduction strategies, measures, lifting, transport, and subtype induction. The framework uses general index types, packages square and rectangular matrices in universe types, and provides a decomposition driver that assembles strategy data into subtype-induction instances. It has been instantiated across PLU, LU, LDL/Cholesky, QR variants, Gauss rank normal form, Hessenberg reductions, Schur variants, normal spectral decomposition, SVD, bidiagonalization, tridiagonalization, UTV, Smith normal form, rational canonical form, and Jordan-type forms at varying levels of statement strength. Across these instances, repeated decomposition proofs are best treated not as separate tasks but as instances of a more general inductive statement whose interface records a certified proof path compatible with the chosen decomposition statement.

math.NA↗
arXiv2026

Quantum Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers for Semidefinite Programming

Semidefinite programming (SDP) is a fundamental convex optimization problem with wide-ranging applications. However, solving large-scale instances remains computationally challenging due to the high cost of solving linear systems and performing eigenvalue decompositions. In this paper, we present a quantum alternating direction method of multipliers (QADMM) for SDPs, building on recent advances in quantum computing. An inexact ADMM framework is developed, which tolerates errors in the iterates arising from block-encoding approximation and quantum measurement. Within this robust scheme, we design a polynomial proximal operator to address the semidefinite conic constraints and apply the quantum singular value transformation to accelerate the most costly projection updates. We prove that the scheme converges to an $ε$-optimal solution of the SDP problem under the strong duality assumption. A detailed complexity analysis shows that the QADMM algorithm achieves favorable scaling with respect to dimension compared to the classical ADMM algorithm and quantum interior point methods, highlighting its potential for solving large-scale SDPs.

math.OC↗
arXiv2026

Restarted Reflected Halpern Acceleration for Augmented Primal-Dual Methods

We study linearly constrained composite convex optimization with a smooth term and a proximable nonsmooth term. We develop a unified augmented primal-dual framework with primal-dual hybrid gradient-type and augmented Chambolle-Pock-type metric choices, including a fully augmented Chambolle-Pock-type family that retains the augmented quadratic term. The exact scheme admits a degenerate proximal-point form; the linearized scheme admits a preconditioned forward-backward form. These representations allow reflected Halpern acceleration to be analyzed directly in primal-dual variables. For the shadow iterates, we prove convergence to Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) points and nonergodic O(1/k) bounds for the KKT residual and objective gap, with a scalar worst-case example. We show that finite identification belongs to the shadow sequence rather than to the anchored Halpern state. After identification, an affine-face model yields an exact reduced residual identity and a local-sharpness criterion. Finally, we prove linear convergence of restart anchors under fixed-point sharpness on the visited restart set, with local or tail convergence when sharpness follows from local error bounds. Experiments on linear and convex quadratic programs illustrate augmentation and linearization.

math.OC↗
arXiv2026

Achieving double-logarithmic precision dependence in optimization-based quantum unstructured search

Grover's algorithm is a fundamental quantum algorithm that achieves a quadratic speedup for unstructured search problems of size $N$. Recent studies have reformulated this task as a maximization problem on the unitary manifold and solved it via linearly convergent Riemannian gradient ascent (RGA) methods, resulting in a complexity of $O(\sqrt{N/M}\log (1/\varepsilon))$, where $M$ denotes the number of target items and $\varepsilon$ denotes the success probability error. In this work, we adopt the Riemannian modified Newton (RMN) method to solve the quantum search problem, under the assumption that the ratio $ M/N$ is known. We show that, in this setting, the Riemannian Newton direction is collinear with the Riemannian gradient in the sense that the Riemannian gradient is always an eigenvector of the corresponding Riemannian Hessian. This structure removes the overhead of Hessian inversion and allows the proposed RMN method to retain the local quadratic convergence in terms of the error $\varepsilon$. More precisely, we rigorously prove an overall complexity of $O(\sqrt{N/M}+\log\log(1/\varepsilon))$. Furthermore, our approach remains Grover-compatible, namely, it relies exclusively on the standard Grover diffusion and oracle operators to ensure algorithmic implementability, and its parameter update process can be efficiently precomputed on classical computers.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2026

A Learning Method with Gap-Aware Generation for Heterogeneous DAG Scheduling

Efficient scheduling of directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) is a core problem in large-scale data-intensive computing systems, where query plans, data-processing workloads, and computation graphs consist of dependent tasks competing for limited heterogeneous resource pools. In practice, achieving high-performance execution requires schedulers to adapt across environments with varying resource pools and task types, while generating schedules under tight runtime budgets. We propose WeCAN, an end-to-end reinforcement learning framework for heterogeneous DAG scheduling that addresses task-pool compatibility coefficients and generation-induced optimality gaps. It adopts a two-stage single-pass design: a single forward pass produces task-pool scores and global parameters, followed by a generation map that constructs schedules without repeated network calls. Its weighted cross-attention encoder models task-pool interactions gated by compatibility coefficients, and is size-agnostic to environment fluctuations. Moreover, widely used list-scheduling maps can incur generation-induced optimality gaps from restricted reachability. We introduce an order-space analysis that characterizes the reachable set of generation maps via feasible schedule orders, explains the mechanism behind generation-induced gaps, and yields sufficient conditions for gap elimination. Guided by these conditions, we design a skip-extended realization with an analytically parameterized decreasing skip rule, which enlarges the reachable order set while preserving single-pass efficiency. Experiments on real-world TPC-H query DAGs, resource-intensive workload datasets, and ML-compiler computation graphs demonstrate improved makespan over strong baselines, with inference time comparable to classical heuristics and faster than multi-round neural schedulers.

cs.LG↗
arXiv2026

A Grover-compatible manifold optimization algorithm for quantum search

Grover's algorithm is a fundamental quantum algorithm that offers a quadratic speedup for the unstructured search problem by alternately applying physically implementable oracle and diffusion operators. In this paper, we reformulate the unstructured search as a maximization problem on the unitary manifold and solve it via the Riemannian gradient ascent (RGA) method. To overcome the difficulty that generic RGA updates do not, in general, correspond to physically implementable quantum operators, we introduce Grover-compatible retractions to restrict RGA updates to valid oracle and diffusion operators. Theoretically, we establish a local Riemannian $μ$-Polyak-Łojasiewicz (PL) inequality with $μ= \tfrac{1}{2}$, which yields a linear convergence rate of $1 - κ^{-1}$ toward the global solution. Here, the condition number $κ= L_{\mathrm{Rie}} / μ$, where $L_{\mathrm{Rie}}$ denotes the Riemannian Lipschitz constant of the gradient. Taking into account both the geometry of the unitary manifold and the special structure of the cost function, we show that $L_{\mathrm{Rie}} = O(\sqrt{N})$ for problem size $N = 2^n$. Consequently, the resulting iteration complexity is $O(\sqrt{N} \log(1/\varepsilon))$ for attaining an $\varepsilon$-accurate solution, which matches the quadratic speedup of $O(\sqrt{N})$ achieved by Grover's algorithm. These results demonstrate that an optimization-based viewpoint can offer fresh conceptual insights and lead to new advances in the design of quantum algorithms.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2026

Constructing Industrial-Scale Optimization Modeling Benchmark

Optimization modeling underpins decision-making in logistics, manufacturing, energy, and finance, yet translating natural-language requirements into correct optimization formulations and solver-executable code remains labor-intensive. Although large language models (LLMs) have been explored for this task, evaluation is still dominated by toy-sized or synthetic benchmarks, masking the difficulty of industrial problems with $10^{3}$--$10^{6}$ (or more) variables and constraints. A key bottleneck is the lack of benchmarks that align natural-language specifications with reference formulations/solver code grounded in real optimization models. To fill in this gap, we introduce MIPLIB-NL, built via a structure-aware reverse construction methodology from real mixed-integer linear programs in MIPLIB~2017. Our pipeline (i) recovers compact, reusable model structure from flat solver formulations, (ii) reverse-generates natural-language specifications explicitly tied to this recovered structure under a unified model--data separation format, and (iii) performs iterative semantic validation through expert review and human--LLM interaction with independent reconstruction checks. This yields 223 one-to-one reconstructions that preserve the mathematical content of the original instances while enabling realistic natural-language-to-optimization evaluation. Experiments show substantial performance degradation on MIPLIB-NL for systems that perform strongly on existing benchmarks, exposing failure modes invisible at toy scale.

cs.LG↗
arXiv2026

The Error in Multivariate Linear Extrapolation with Applications to Derivative-Free Optimization

We study in this paper the function approximation error of multivariate linear extrapolation. The sharp error bound of linear interpolation already exists in the literature. However, linear extrapolation is used far more often in applications such as derivative-free optimization, while its error is not well-studied. We introduce in this paper a method to numerically compute the sharp bound on the error, and then present several analytical bounds along with the conditions under which they are sharp. We also provide a complexity analysis of a basic simplicial search method to illustrate an application of these error bounds in derivative-free optimization. All results are under the assumptions that the function being interpolated has Lipschitz continuous gradient and is interpolated on an affinely independent sample set.

math.OC↗
arXiv2026

CAM-Bench: A Benchmark for Computational and Applied Mathematics in Lean

Formal theorem-proving benchmarks enable mechanically verifiable evaluation of mathematical reasoning in large language models. However, existing benchmarks mainly focus on Olympiad-style problems and algebraic domains, leaving computational and applied mathematics underrepresented. We introduce CAM-Bench, a Lean 4 theorem-proving benchmark of 1,000 Lean proof targets in computational and applied mathematics, with coverage spanning optimization, numerical linear algebra, and numerical analysis. These problems are adapted from textbook exercises and often depend on locally introduced definitions, notation, algorithms, and elementary results. To construct CAM-Bench, we develop a dependency-recovery pipeline that reconstructs the local textbook context needed to state each problem faithfully. It then normalizes each problem into a standalone informal theorem and translates it into a Lean target. We validate the resulting formal problems through Lean compilation and semantic review, checking both formal correctness and semantic alignment with the original exercises. For each problem, we release the raw exercise, recovered context, normalized informal theorem, and final Lean target. CAM-Bench complements existing formal mathematics benchmarks by targeting applied mathematics problems that rely on textbook concepts and elementary theorems, many of which are not directly available as standard Mathlib4 lemmas. We evaluate widely used large language models and formalization agents on CAM-Bench, and analyze common failure modes in tracking local assumptions, applying elementary results, decomposing proofs, and maintaining long-horizon control in Lean.

cs.AI↗