Local exponential stability of mean-field Langevin descent-ascent and associated particle system

Read full text
Authors: Geuntaek Seo, Minseop Shin, Pierre Monmarché, Beomjun Choi
Cited by: 0

Abstract

We study the mean-field Langevin descent-ascent (MFL-DA), a coupled optimization dynamics on the space of probability measures for entropically regularized two-player zero-sum games, together with its associated interacting particle system. For general nonconvex-nonconcave payoffs, Wang and Chizat (COLT 2024) asked whether the original single-timescale MFL-DA converges to the mixed Nash equilibrium and, if so, at what rate. We prove a local affirmative answer in Wasserstein space: if the initial datum is sufficiently close to the mixed Nash equilibrium, then the mean-field dynamics converges to it exponentially fast at a quantitative rate. We further show that the finite-$N$ particle system inherits this stability up to times exponential in $N$, with an $N$-independent exponential rate modulo a finite-particle error floor. Combined with the recent counterexample of Mourrat and Pillaud-Vivien for MFL-DA, which shows that global convergence cannot hold in general, our theorem completes the positive local counterpart of the Wang-Chizat question: the mixed Nash equilibrium has a robust basin of attraction, stable under both the mean-field flow and its finite-particle approximation.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Geometric Analysis and Curvature Flows Stochastic Gradient Optimization Techniques Game Theory and Applications

Publication details

Journal / source
arXiv (Cornell University)
Publication date
2 February 2026
Document type
Preprint