arXiv cs.LGOctober 7, 2026
Does Muon Need Fine-Grained Spectral Shaping?
Excerpt
arXiv:2610.07497v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Muon combines current and past gradients into matrix momentum. For $M=U\Sigma V^\top$, the idealized polar update $Q=UV^\top$ gives every singular direction the same weight. We refer to this as the flat profile. Several recent optimizers replace this flat profile with fine-grained spectral maps that give each direction its own gain. We ask how much of this spectral detail a Muon update needs. Our spectral diagnostics show that approximately $94$-