Towards a Geometric Understanding of Tensor Learning via the t-Product

Andong Wang, Yuning Qiu, Haonan Huang, Zhong Jin, Guoxu Zhou, Qibin Zhao

Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 38 (NeurIPS 2025) Main Conference Track

Despite the growing success of transform-based tensor models such as the t-product, their underlying geometric principles remain poorly understood. Classical differential geometry, built on real-valued function spaces, is not well suited to capture the algebraic and spectral structure induced by transform-based tensor operations. In this work, we take an initial step toward a geometric framework for tensors equipped with tube-wise multiplication via orthogonal transforms. We introduce the notion of smooth t-manifolds, defined as topological spaces locally modeled on structured tensor modules over a commutative t-scalar ring. This formulation enables transform-consistent definitions of geometric objects, including metrics, gradients, Laplacians, and geodesics, thereby bridging discrete and continuous tensor settings within a unified algebraic-geometric perspective. On this basis, we develop a statistical procedure for testing whether tensor data lie near a low-dimensional t-manifold, and provide nonasymptotic guarantees for manifold fitting under noise. We further establish approximation bounds for tensor neural networks that learn smooth functions over t-manifolds, with generalization rates determined by intrinsic geometric complexity. This framework offers a theoretical foundation for geometry-aware learning in structured tensor spaces and supports the development of models that align with transform-based tensor representations.