Constructive conditional normalizing flows

Abstract: Motivated by applications in conditional sampling, given a probability measure $μ$ and a diffeomorphism $φ$, we consider the problem of simultaneously approximating $φ$ and the pushforward $φ_{#}μ$ by means of the flow of a continuity equation whose velocity field is a perceptron neural network with piecewise constant weights. We provide an explicit construction based on a polar-like decomposition of the Lagrange interpolant of $φ$. The latter involves a compressible component, given by the gradient of a particular convex function, which can be realized exactly, and an incompressible component, which -- after approximating via permutations -- can be implemented through shear flows intrinsic to the continuity equation. For more regular maps $φ$ -- such as the Knöthe-Rosenblatt rearrangement -- we provide an alternative, probabilistic construction inspired by the Maurey empirical method, in which the number of discontinuities in the weights doesn't scale inversely with the ambient dimension.