The mean field variational inference (MFVI) formulation restricts the general Bayesian inference problem to the subspace of product measures. We present a framework to analyze MFVI algorithms, which is inspired by a similar development for general variational Bayesian formulations. Our approach enables the MFVI problem to be represented in three different manners: a gradient flow on Wasserstein space, a system of Fokker-Planck-like equations and a diffusion process. Rigorous guarantees are established to show that a time-discretized implementation of the coordinate ascent variational inference algorithm in the product Wasserstein space of measures yields a gradient flow in the limit. A similar result is obtained for their associated densities, with the limit being given by a quasi-linear partial differential equation. A popular class of practical algorithms falls in this framework, which provides tools to establish convergence. We hope this framework could be used to guarantee convergence of algorithms in a variety of approaches, old and new, to solve variational inference problems.

本论文提出了一种基于Wasserstein空间梯度流、Fokker-Planck方程和扩散过程的分析mean field variational inference (MFVI)算法的框架，旨在解决MFVI算法中的收敛问题。研究表明，此框架可以保证多种解决变分推断问题的算法的收敛性。

关于均值场变分推断的表现