Denoising as Projection: Constrained Optimization with Gradient-Guided Diffusion

arXiv:2608.29507v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Diffusion models are increasingly used not only for sampling from learned data distributions, but also for generating samples that optimize task-specific objectives. A common approach is to guide the reverse diffusion process using gradients of an external objective. However, when the data distribution is supported on a structured feasible set, such as a manifold or a constraint set, gradient guidance can move samples away from the learned data g