I-FLOP: Fast Learning of Order and Parents from Interventional Data

Abstract

We extend the FLOP (fast learning of order and parents) algorithm recently proposed by Wienöbst et al. (2026) from observational to interventional data. In particular, we use the interventional BIC score of Hauser and Bühlmann (2012), adapting it to be used with the iterative Cholesky-based score updates that are partly responsible for FLOP's speed. We show that, in the sample limit, I-FLOP recovers a DAG in the same interventional Markov equivalence class as the data-generating DAG. We compare I-FLOP to existing causal structure learning algorithms on real and simulated interventional data, where it performs favorably in terms of both performance and run time.

arXiv comment28 pages, 7 figures; accepted to The 13th International Conference on Probabilistic Graphical Models (PGM)