This study explores the teacher-student paradigm in machine learning, focusing on overparameterized student networks trained by fixed teacher networks. It introduces a new optimization scheme using spectral representation of linear information transfer between layers. This approach allows identifying a stable student substructure that mirrors the teacher’s complexity. The method shows that pruning unimportant nodes, based on optimized eigenvalues, does not degrade performance, indicating a second-order phase transition with universality traits in neural network training.

This research explores the global synchronization of topological signals on higher-order networks, revealing that topological constraints impact synchronization differently across various network structures.

We introduce a new method for training deep neural networks by focusing on the spectral space, rather than the traditional node space. It involves adjusting the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of transfer operators, offering improved performance over standard methods with an equivalent number of parameters.