Score-Based Generative Modeling Reading List

Curated by Mouhssine Rifaki | Stanford Electrical Engineering | Last updated August 2026

Essential papers on score matching and score-based generative modeling, from noise-conditional estimation to annealed Langevin dynamics.

Score-Based Generative Modeling: 10 key papers

1. Generative Modeling by Estimating Gradients of the Data Distribution
   Song and Ermon. arXiv 2019.
2. Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations
   Song et al. arXiv 2020.
3. Improved Techniques for Training Score-Based Generative Models
   Song and Ermon. arXiv 2020.
4. Maximum Likelihood Training of Score-Based Diffusion Models
   Song et al. arXiv 2021.
5. A Connection Between Score Matching and Denoising Autoencoders
   Vincent. Neural Computation 2011.
6. Sliced Score Matching: A Scalable Approach to Density and Score Estimation
   Song et al. arXiv 2019.
7. Score-based Generative Modeling in Latent Space
   Vahdat et al. arXiv 2021.
8. Gotta Go Fast When Generating Data with Score-Based Models
   Jolicoeur-Martineau et al. arXiv 2021.
9. Score-Based Generative Modeling with Critically-Damped Langevin Diffusion
   Dockhorn et al. arXiv 2021.
10. Analytic-DPM: an Analytic Estimate of the Optimal Reverse Variance in Diffusion Probabilistic Models
    Bao et al. arXiv 2022.

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• Offline Imitation Learning