From Paul:

We have been investigating range check issues when using the Vector API. The recommended approach for loops is to express the upper bound using the method VectorSpecies.loopBound as in say:

@Benchmark
public float[] vector1() {
    int i = 0;
    for (; i < SPECIES.loopBound(a.length); i += SPECIES.length()) {
        // FloatVector va, vb, vc;
        var va = FloatVector.fromArray(SPECIES, a, i);
        var vb = FloatVector.fromArray(SPECIES, b, i);
        var vc = va.fma(va, vb.mul(vb)).neg();
        vc.intoArray(r, i);
    }

    for (; i < a.length; i++) {
        r[i] = Math.fma(a[i], a[i], b[i] * b[i]) * -1.0f;
    }

    return r;
}

However, this does not result in the removal of bounds checks from within the loop when loading/storing the vectors from/to memory.