Recent empirical and theoretical work has shown that the dynamics of the large eigenvalues of the training loss Hessian have some remarkably robust features across models and datasets in the full batch regime. There is often an early period of progressive sharpening where the large eigenvalues increase, followed by stabilization at a predictable value known as the edge of stability. Previous work showed that in the stochastic setting, the eigenvalues increase more slowly - a phenomenon we call conservative sharpening. We provide a theoretical analysis of a simple high-dimensional model which shows the origin of this slowdown. We also show that there is an alternative stochastic edge of stability which arises at small batch size that is sensitive to the trace of the Neural Tangent Kernel rather than the large Hessian eigenvalues. We conduct an experimental study which highlights the qualitative differences from the full batch phenomenology, and suggests that controlling the stochastic edge of stability can help optimization.

在全批量情况下，训练损失Hessian的大特征值动态具有某些显著稳定的特征。在随机设置中，特征值的增长速度较慢，我们称之为保守锐化。我们提供了一个简单的高维模型的理论分析来解释这种减速现象。我们还展示了随机稳定边界的替代解释，它在小批量的情况下与神经切线核的迹有关，而不是大的Hessian特征值。我们进行了实验研究，突出了与全批量现象的定性差异，并表明控制随机稳定边界可以帮助优化。

高维分析揭示保守的锐化和随机稳定边缘