English

How well can we estimate a sparse vector?

Information Theory 2013-03-04 v5 math.IT Statistics Theory Statistics Theory

Abstract

The estimation of a sparse vector in the linear model is a fundamental problem in signal processing, statistics, and compressive sensing. This paper establishes a lower bound on the mean-squared error, which holds regardless of the sensing/design matrix being used and regardless of the estimation procedure. This lower bound very nearly matches the known upper bound one gets by taking a random projection of the sparse vector followed by an 1\ell_1 estimation procedure such as the Dantzig selector. In this sense, compressive sensing techniques cannot essentially be improved.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1104.5246,
  title  = {How well can we estimate a sparse vector?},
  author = {Emmanuel J. Candès and Mark A. Davenport},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1104.5246},
  year   = {2013}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-21T17:59:32.577Z