English

Sharp Root Anti-Concentration via Projective Incidence and Ordered Root Laws

Machine Learning 2026-08-03 v1

Abstract

This paper answers the one-dimensional local root anti-concentration questions posed by Balcan, Pegden, and Sharma in the context of online optimization of piecewise-Lipschitz functions. For a homogeneous feature curve and coefficients whose density relative to the uniform law on a symmetric convex body KK is bounded by AA, we show that the worst-case interval-hitting constant equals AA times a section-averaged projective incidence speed. For cube-supported coefficients, this speed is equivalent, up to universal constants, to the projective Lipschitz constant. This yields a sharp, dimension-free characterization and removes the previous N\sqrt N loss. For monic degree-dd polynomials under arbitrary coefficient laws, we prove that the interval-hitting constant is finite if and only if the ordered real-root laws have bounded densities, with a factor-dd comparison that is sharp. Conditional and joint coefficient-space area formulas, together with a two-chart certificate, make this criterion verifiable for dependent and singular coefficient laws. We also give two graph-learning applications that complete the transition-to-regret chain. A cost-sensitive Gaussian-RBF harmonic classifier uses the projective incidence theorem and achieves expected regret O~((An2DeBD/+1)T)\widetilde O((An^2D e^{BD}/\ell+1)\sqrt T). A common-offset polynomial-kernel model uses rigid translation of the ordered roots and achieves O~((qn2κ+1)T)\widetilde O((qn^2\kappa+1)\sqrt T) regret, even when the induced coefficient law is singular in the ambient coefficient space.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2608.01670,
  title  = {Sharp Root Anti-Concentration via Projective Incidence and Ordered Root Laws},
  author = {Zijun Wang and Yuchen Miao and Yifan Hu and Huanmin Liu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2608.01670},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

27 pages, 3 figures