Training ideas

Curricula, sampling schedules, pseudo-labeling and multi-task mixing, with the standard training recipe as the control.

△ Mechanism confirmed, baseline not beaten 2026

Matrix-Free Krylov Backpropagation Through Solver Layers

Turn an iterative optimization or equilibrium computation inside a neural network into a differentiable layer whose backward pass solves the implicit adjoint system with conjugate gradients or GMRES using only automatic-differentiation matrix-vector products. This avoids storing unrolled iterations and avoids explicit Hessian or Jacobian construction, enabling longer solver horizons and lower-memory implicit architectures.

Useful8/10
Difficulty6/10
Novelty5/10
Paper: PANDA: A Matrix-Free Differentiable NMPC Solver via Proximal Averaged Quasi-Newton with Adaptive Linesearch Algorithm arXiv:2608.16280
△ Mechanism confirmed, baseline not beaten 2026

Derivative-Free Very-Weak Neural PDE Solver

Train a neural trial function for an elliptic PDE using a very-weak residual in which all derivatives act on fixed smooth test functions rather than on the neural network. This eliminates second-order reverse-mode or forward-mode automatic differentiation and allows low-regularity activations while retaining a least-squares objective over many test functions.

Useful8/10
Difficulty4/10
Novelty6/10
Paper: Neural Very Weak Formulations enabling Hardware-Oriented deep PDE solvers arXiv:2607.14498
△ Mechanism confirmed, baseline not beaten 2026

Residual-Christoffel Collocation for Random-Feature PDE Networks

Replace uniform collocation for a fixed random-feature neural PDE solver with sampling from the leverage-score density of the operator-applied features. Whiten the retained residual feature space before solving for output coefficients, so the sampled least-squares matrix has an identity-like expected Gram rather than inheriting severe anisotropy from the differential operator. The same construction can be used for a linearized neural network by treating Jacobian features as the trial functions.

Useful8/10
Difficulty5/10
Novelty7/10
Paper: Residual-Christoffel Sampling for Random Feature Collocation of Linear PDEs arXiv:2607.13382
△ Mechanism confirmed, baseline not beaten 2026

Walk-on-Spheres stochastic target layer

Train a neural network to represent an elliptic solution using Walk-on-Spheres rollouts as stochastic targets instead of evaluating a mesh-based PDE residual. For each input point, recursively jump to a random point on the largest interior sphere, accumulate source contributions, evaluate boundary data at termination, and regress the network output to the resulting Monte Carlo estimate.

Useful7/10
Difficulty5/10
Novelty6/10
Paper: Walk-on-Spheres Monte Carlo and deep neural network approximations of elliptic PDEs with drift and killing arXiv:2608.09494
△ Mechanism confirmed, baseline not beaten 2026

Quasi-uniform residual least squares

Train a frozen-feature or linearized neural network by residual least squares on deterministic quasi-uniform points rather than independently sampled collocation points. The paper's norm-equivalence result predicts that, once the number of residual points is proportional to the number of active features, the empirical residual controls the continuous residual and avoids random undersampling of localized errors.

Useful7/10
Difficulty4/10
Novelty6/10
Paper: Optimal Neural Network Approximation via Empirical Least Squares with Deterministic Samples arXiv:2608.06687