English

Gradient-Free Methods for Non-Smooth Convex Stochastic Optimization with Heavy-Tailed Noise on Convex Compact

Optimization and Control 2023-08-25 v3

Abstract

We present two easy-to-implement gradient-free/zeroth-order methods to optimize a stochastic non-smooth function accessible only via a black-box. The methods are built upon efficient first-order methods in the heavy-tailed case, i.e., when the gradient noise has infinite variance but bounded (1+κ)(1+\kappa)-th moment for some κ(0,1]\kappa \in(0,1]. The first algorithm is based on the stochastic mirror descent with a particular class of uniformly convex mirror maps which is robust to heavy-tailed noise. The second algorithm is based on the stochastic mirror descent and gradient clipping technique. Additionally, for the objective functions satisfying the rr-growth condition, faster algorithms are proposed based on these methods and the restart technique.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2304.02442,
  title  = {Gradient-Free Methods for Non-Smooth Convex Stochastic Optimization with Heavy-Tailed Noise on Convex Compact},
  author = {Nikita Kornilov and Alexander Gasnikov and Pavel Dvurechensky and Darina Dvinskikh},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2304.02442},
  year   = {2023}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T09:50:53.432Z