[Submitted on 22 Sep 2026]
Title:QUARTET: Quad-branch cross-Attention and Random-walk Traces for Enhancing Transformers on Relational Graphs
View a PDF of the paper titled QUARTET: Quad-branch cross-Attention and Random-walk Traces for Enhancing Transformers on Relational Graphs, by Kyaw Hpone Myint and 6 other authors
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Abstract:Relational Deep Learning (RDL) models multi-table databases as heterogeneous temporal graphs, and graph transformers currently achieve state-of-the-art performance on benchmarks like RelBench. However, the current leading model, RelGT, suffers from two key limitations: its random local sampler yields loosely connected subgraphs that hinder message passing, and its global attention module relies on a single, seed-feature-based memory that ignores broader macro-level dynamics. To overcome these limitations, we introduce QUARTET, an expressive graph transformer architecture that applies full self-attention on local subgraphs while enriching global context through cross-attention branches. Specifically, QUARTET employs a Causal Random Walk (CRW) sampler based on recency-truncated Personalized PageRank (PPR) to extract compact, hub-robust, and densely connected local subgraphs without temporal leakage. Concurrently, a quad-branch cross-attention module integrates global context from four complementary perspectives: seed feature, seed topology, temporal dynamics, and collaborative dynamics. Across the RelBench v1 classification tasks, QUARTET consistently matches or outperforms the current state-of-the-art graph transformer baselines (HGT and RelGT). Ablation studies confirm that the CRW sampler significantly enriches local neighborhood quality, while the global branches provide essential, task-specific predictive gains.
Comments: This work has been accepted for main conference track at Learning on Graphs (LoG) 2026
Subjects:
Machine Learning (cs.LG); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI)
Cite as: arXiv:2609.26855 [cs.LG]
(or arXiv:2609.26855v1 [cs.LG] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.26855
arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite
Submission history
From: Kyaw Hpone Myint [view email] [v1] Tue, 22 Sep 2026 14:36:19 UTC (313 KB)
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