Preprint Open access
Global Ranks Survive, Selected Heads Shift: BOS-Sink Topology under 4-bit Weight-Only Quantization
Sink-aware deployment may identify important first-token attention heads before a model is quantized, then reuse that map at the edge. We test when this shortcut is safe for 4-bit NF4 weight-only post-training quantization (PTQ). Our Sink Topology Consistency (STC) metrics separate global rank preservation, top-$k$ set …