Unified Convergence Analysis for Score-Based Diffusion Models with Deterministic Samplers

Abstract: Score-based diffusion models have emerged as powerful techniques for generating samples from high-dimensional data distributions. These models involve a two-phase process: first, injecting noise to transform the data distribution into a known prior distribution, and second, sampling to recover the original data distribution from noise. Among the various sampling methods, deterministic samplers stand out for their enhanced efficiency. However, analyzing these deterministic samplers presents unique challenges, as they preclude the use of established techniques such as Girsanov's theorem, which are only applicable to stochastic samplers. Furthermore, existing analysis for deterministic samplers usually focuses on specific examples, lacking a generalized approach for general forward processes and various deterministic samplers. Our paper addresses these limitations by introducing a unified convergence analysis framework. To demonstrate the power of our framework, we analyze the variance-preserving (VP) forward process with the exponential integrator (EI) scheme, achieving iteration complexity of $\tilde O(d^2/\epsilon)$. Additionally, we provide a detailed analysis of Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models (DDIM)-type samplers, which have been underexplored in previous research, achieving polynomial iteration complexity.