Seminar · Applied Mathematics
The Wide and Wonderful World of Optimal Transport Theory in Physics
Jessica Howard · Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics
Wed, Apr 22, 2026 · 18:00 UTC
Jessica Howard presents optimal transport as a common language for neural-network ensembles, statistical field theories and exact renormalisation-group flows. Viewing a field theory as a probability distribution over functions makes transport methods useful for numerical nonperturbative calculations and analytical insights. The talk connects these ideas to particle-physics data analysis and to feature learning and training dynamics in asymptotically wide networks.