Convergence of Sharpness-Aware Minimization Algorithms using Increasing Batch Size and Decaying Learning Rate

ICLR 2025 Conference Submission1271 Authors

17 Sept 2024 (modified: 13 Oct 2024)ICLR 2025 Conference SubmissionEveryoneRevisionsBibTeXCC BY 4.0
Keywords: batch size, deep learning, gap guided sharpness-aware minimization, learning rate, sharpness-aware minimization
Abstract: The sharpness-aware minimization (SAM) algorithm and its variants, including gap guided SAM (GSAM), have been successful at improving the generalization capability of deep neural network models by finding flat local minima of the empirical loss in training. Meanwhile, it has been shown theoretically and practically that increasing the batch size or decaying the learning rate avoids sharp local minima of the empirical loss. In this paper, we consider the GSAM algorithm with increasing batch sizes or decaying learning rates, such as cosine annealing or linear learning rate, and theoretically show its convergence. Moreover, we numerically compare SAM (GSAM) with and without an increasing batch size and conclude that using an increasing batch size or decaying learning rate finds flatter local minima than using a constant batch size and learning rate.
Primary Area: optimization
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Submission Number: 1271
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