Spectral phase transitions and trainability in neural network learning dynamics

Abstract

The emergence of low-dimensional structures in the spectra of neural network weight matrices is a common empirical feature of trained models, but the dynamical origin of this phenomenon during learning remains an open problem. We formulate neural network training as the stochastic evolution of an initially random matrix ensemble, driven by stochastic gradient descent (SGD) updates that reshape the spectral bulk while amplifying signal strength. This induces a Baik-Ben Arous-Péché (BBP) transition during training, where isolated eigenvalues detach from the random bulk distribution, providing a dynamical framework for representation formation in high-dimensional learning dynamics. We demonstrate this in a solvable linear teacher-student model, where spectral evolution is analytically tractable and a phase diagram of trainability governed by the step size (or learning rate) and initial weight variance is obtained, and subsequently extend our formalism beyond the linear regime to nonlinear and stochastic settings. Numerical simulations in realistic settings support this picture, showing robust emergence of spectral alignment during training. Our results suggest that spectral analysis may provide a unified perspective of stochastic learning dynamics, linking trainability, optimisation hyperparameters, spectral phase transitions, and representation learning in neural networks.