A Unified Convergence Rate Analysis of The Accelerated Smoothed Gap Reduction Algorithm

In this paper, we develop a unified convergence analysis framework for the Accelerated Smoothed GAp ReDuction algorithm (ASGARD) introduced in [20, Tran-Dinh et al, 2015] Unlike[20], the new analysis covers three settings in a single algorithm: general convexity, strong convexity, and strong convexity and smoothness. Moreover, we establish the convergence guarantees on three criteria: (i) gap function, (ii) primal objective residual, and (iii) dual objective residual. Our convergence rates are optimal (up to a constant factor) in all cases. While the convergence rate on the primal objective residual for the general convex case has been established in [20], we prove additional convergence rates on the gap function and the dual objective residual. The analysis for the last two cases is completely new. Our results provide a complete picture on the convergence guarantees of ASGARD. Finally, we present four different numerical experiments on a representative optimization model to verify our algorithm and compare it with Nesterov's smoothing technique.