Provable Non-Acceleration of Standard Strang Splittings of Kinetic Langevin Dynamics

arXiv:2608.25279 · math.PR, cs.NA, math.NA, stat.CO, stat.ML · Submitted 2026-08-26 · Read on arXiv

math.PR, cs.NA, math.NA, stat.CO, stat.ML

Submitted: 2026-08-26

Updated: 2026-08-26

Comments: 58 pages, 4 figures. Mixing time lower bounds ruling out ballistic (accelerated) cold-start mixing for all six standard Strang splittings of kinetic Langevin dynamics under fixed-parameter tunings, with a matching O(kappa) upper bound for OBABO

License: http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/

Terminology

• Metastability — 16× in this paper · explained in 3 episodes
• Langevin Dynamics — 15× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Regularization — 10× in this paper · explained in 3 episodes
• Wasserstein Distance — 9× in this paper · explained in 4 episodes
• EMMA — 7× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Trace — 7× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Benchmark — 5× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Accuracy — 3× in this paper · explained in 1 episode
• Uncertainty Quantification — 2× in this paper · explained in 8 episodes
• Consistency — 1× in this paper · explained in 3 episodes
• Convergence Guarantees — 1× in this paper · explained in 3 episodes
• Diffusion Processes — 1× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Non-asymptotic Analysis — 1× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes

Sources

• Sharp entropy decay for hypocoercive and non-symmetric Fokker-Planck equations with linear drift
• On couplings for kinetic Langevin diffusions
• A sharp hypocoercive entropy decay estimate for underdamped Langevin dynamics
• Convergence of kinetic Langevin samplers for non-convex potentials

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