NormalizingFlows.jl

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NormalizingFlows.jl

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Implementation of normalizing flows compatible with Bijectors.jl

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# NormalizingFlows.jl

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**Last updated: 2025-Aug-08**

A normalizing flow library for Julia.

The purpose of this package is to provide a simple and flexible interface for variational inference (VI) and normalizing flows (NF) for Bayesian computation or generative modeling.
The key focus is to ensure modularity and extensibility, so that users can easily 
construct (e.g., define customized flow layers) and combine various components 
(e.g., choose different VI objectives or gradient estimates) 
for variational approximation of general target distributions, 
without being tied to specific probabilistic programming frameworks or applications.

See the [documentation](https://turinglang.org/NormalizingFlows.jl/dev/) for more.

We also provide several demos and examples in [example](https://github.com/TuringLang/NormalizingFlows.jl/tree/main/example).

## Installation
To install the package, run the following command in the Julia REPL:
```julia
]  # enter Pkg mode
(@v1.11) pkg> add NormalizingFlows
```
Then simply run the following command to use the package:
```julia
using NormalizingFlows
```

## Quick recap of normalizing flows
Normalizing flows transform a simple reference distribution $q_0$ (sometimes referred to as the base distribution) 
to a complex distribution $q$ using invertible functions.

In more details, given the base distribution, usually a standard Gaussian distribution, i.e., $q_0 = \mathcal{N}(0, I)$,
we apply a series of parameterized invertible transformations (called flow layers), $T_{1, \theta_1}, \cdots, T_{N, \theta_k}$, yielding that
```math
Z_N = T_{N, \theta_N} \circ \cdots \circ T_{1, \theta_1} (Z_0) , \quad Z_0 \sim q_0,\quad  Z_N \sim q_{\theta}, 
```
where $\theta = (\theta_1, \dots, \theta_N)$ is the parameter to be learned, and $q_{\theta}$ is the variational distribution (flow distribution). This describes **sampling procedure** of normalizing flows, which requires sending draws through a forward pass of these flow layers.

Since all the transformations are invertible (technically [diffeomorphic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffeomorphism)), we can evaluate the density of a normalizing flow distribution $q_{\theta}$ by the change of variable formula:
```math
q_\theta(x)=\frac{q_0\left(T_1^{-1} \circ \cdots \circ
T_N^{-1}(x)\right)}{\prod_{n=1}^N J_n\left(T_n^{-1} \circ \cdots \circ
T_N^{-1}(x)\right)} \quad J_n(x)=\left|\text{det} \nabla_x
T_n(x)\right|.
```
Here we drop the subscript $\theta_n, n = 1, \dots, N$ for simplicity. 
Density evaluation of normalizing flow requires computing the **inverse** and the
**Jacobian determinant** of each flow layer.

Given the feasibility of i.i.d. sampling and density evaluation, normalizing flows can be trained by minimizing some statistical distances to the target distribution $p$. The typical choice of the statistical distance is the forward and backward Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence, which leads to the following optimization problems:
```math
\begin{aligned}
\text{Reverse KL:}\quad
&\arg\min _{\theta} \mathbb{E}_{q_{\theta}}\left[\log q_{\theta}(Z)-\log p(Z)\right] \\
&= \arg\min _{\theta} \mathbb{E}_{q_0}\left[\log \frac{q_\theta(T_N\circ \cdots \circ T_1(Z_0))}{p(T_N\circ \cdots \circ T_1(Z_0))}\right] \\
&= \arg\max _{\theta} \mathbb{E}_{q_0}\left[ \log p\left(T_N \circ \cdots \circ T_1(Z_0)\right)-\log q_0(Z_0)+\sum_{n=1}^N \log J_n\left(T_n \circ \cdots \circ T_1(Z_0)\right)\right]
\end{aligned}
```
and 
```math
\begin{aligned}
\text{Forward KL:}\quad
&\arg\min _{\theta} \mathbb{E}_{p}\left[\log q_{\theta}(Z)-\log p(Z)\right] \\
&= \arg\min _{\theta} \mathbb{E}_{p}\left[\log q_\theta(Z)\right] 
\end{aligned}
```
Both problems can be solved via standard stochastic optimization algorithms,
such as stochastic gradient descent (SGD) and its variants.

Reverse KL minimization is typically used for **Bayesian computation**, where one
wants to approximate a posterior distribution $p$ that is only known up to a
normalizing constant. 
In contrast, forward KL minimization is typically used for **generative modeling**, 
where one wants to learn the underlying distribution of some data.

## Current status and to-dos

- [x] general interface development
- [x] documentation
- [x] including more NF examples/Tutorials [PR#11](https://github.com/TuringLang/NormalizingFlows.jl/pull/11) 
- [x] GPU compatibility [PR#25](https://github.com/TuringLang/NormalizingFlows.jl/pull/25) 
- [ ] integrating [Lux.jl](https://lux.csail.mit.edu/stable/tutorials/intermediate/7_RealNVP) and [Reactant.jl](https://github.com/EnzymeAD/Reactant.jl). This could potentially solve the GPU compatibility issue as well.
- [ ] benchmarking

## Related packages
- [Bijectors.jl](https://github.com/TuringLang/Bijectors.jl): a package for defining bijective transformations, which can be used for defining customized flow layers.
- [Flux.jl](https://fluxml.ai/Flux.jl/stable/)
- [Optimisers.jl](https://github.com/FluxML/Optimisers.jl)
- [AdvancedVI.jl](https://github.com/TuringLang/AdvancedVI.jl)
- [MonotonicSplines.jl](https://github.com/bat/MonotonicSplines.jl)

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