Inexact Uzawa-Double Deep Ritz Method for Weak Adversarial Neural Networks

Abstract

Residual minimization in dual norms is central to Weak Adversarial Neural Network (WAN) approaches for solving partial differential equations (PDEs). This framework naturally leads to saddle-point problems whose numerical solutions can be highly unstable depending on the underlying iterative scheme. Motivated by this structure, we propose and analyze the Uzawa Double Deep Ritz Method, a deep PDE solver that integrates neural network approximations with the classical Uzawa iteration. The proposed method is built around two coupled update rules performed at each iteration: a residual update, obtained by minimizing a Ritz functional associated with the dual problem, and a solution update, obtained by minimizing a Ritz functional driven by the current residual. Both variables are represented by neural networks, mirroring the classical Uzawa architecture for saddle-point problems. By replacing the adversarial min-max optimization of WAN with a sequence of Deep Ritz minimization problems, our study theoretically proves that the proposed method acts as an iterative scheme for solving the WAN formulation. Furthermore, we establish a comprehensive convergence theory for an inexact Uzawa scheme where both subproblems are solved approximately. This analysis extends to practical gradient-based implementations, providing rigorous stability and convergence guarantees for both single and multiple-gradient step update strategies. Numerical experiments validate our theoretical findings and demonstrate the robustness of the proposed approach.