stat.MLOct 9, 2026

Finite-Sample Guarantees for Fully Discrete Conditional Diffusion Models

Authors: Qiuyun Zhu

Organizations: Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science University of Iowa

Abstract

We establish finite-sample guarantees for conditional diffusion models learned from data and implemented with finitely many denoising steps. Our approach aligns the score-training objective with the sampling grid, allowing statistical estimation and numerical discretization errors to be analyzed together. Under a smooth conditional density model, we derive high-probability bounds on the generated distribution's error and quantify the required number of score evaluations. For every smoothness index β>0β>0, a suitable grid yields averaged conditional Kullback--Leibler (KL) divergence O~p(n−2β/(dx+dy+2β))\widetilde O_p(n^{-2β/(d_x+d_y+2β)}) relative to the original target with or without early stopping. Both the full and early-stopped samplers attain average target total-variation (TV) error O~p(n−β/(dx+dy+2β))\widetilde O_p(n^{-β/(d_x+d_y+2β)}). Here nn is the sample size, dx,dyd_x,d_y are the data and conditioning dimensions, and errors are averaged over the conditioning variable. The total-variation bound matches the rate established in existing conditional distribution-estimation theory, up to logarithmic factors.

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