Symmetrized importance samplers for stochastic differential equations

We study a class of importance sampling methods for stochastic differential equations (SDEs). A small-noise analysis is performed, and the results suggest that a simple symmetrization procedure can significantly improve the performance of our importance sampling schemes when the noise is not too large. We demonstrate that this is indeed the case for a number of linear and nonlinear examples. Potential applications, e.g., data assimilation, are discussed.Comment: Added brief discussion of Hamilton-Jacobi equation. Also made various minor corrections. To appear in Communciations in Applied Mathematics and Computational Scienc

A Koopman framework for rare event simulation in stochastic differential equations

We exploit the relationship between the stochastic Koopman operator and the Kolmogorov backward equation to construct importance sampling schemes for stochastic differential equations. Specifically, we propose using eigenfunctions of the stochastic Koopman operator to approximate the Doob transform for an observable of interest (e.g., associated with a rare event) which in turn yields an approximation of the corresponding zero-variance importance sampling estimator. Our approach is broadly applicable and systematic, treating non-normal systems, non-gradient systems, and systems with oscillatory dynamics or rank-deficient noise in a common framework. In nonlinear settings where the stochastic Koopman eigenfunctions cannot be derived analytically, we use dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) methods to compute them numerically, but the framework is agnostic to the particular numerical method employed. Numerical experiments demonstrate that even coarse approximations of a few eigenfunctions, where the latter are built from non-rare trajectories, can produce effective importance sampling schemes for rare events