Related papers: Approximability and proof complexity
Semidefinite programs (SDPs) are standard convex problems that are frequently found in control and optimization applications. Interior-point methods can solve SDPs in polynomial time up to arbitrary accuracy, but scale poorly as the size of…
In this paper we study the fine-grained complexity of finding exact and approximate solutions to problems in P. Our main contribution is showing reductions from exact to approximate solution for a host of such problems. As one (notable)…
We give the first approximation algorithm for mixed packing and covering semidefinite programs (SDPs) with polylogarithmic dependence on width. Mixed packing and covering SDPs constitute a fundamental algorithmic primitive with recent…
Estimation is the computational task of recovering a hidden parameter $x$ associated with a distribution $D_x$, given a measurement $y$ sampled from the distribution. High dimensional estimation problems arise naturally in statistics,…
The dynamics of many systems from physics, economics, chemistry, and biology can be modelled through polynomial functions. In this paper, we provide a computational means to find positively invariant sets of polynomial dynamical systems by…
We consider the problem of minimizing a continuous function f over a compact set K. We analyze a hierarchy of upper bounds proposed by Lasserre in [SIAM J. Optim. 21(3) (2011), pp. 864--885], obtained by searching for an optimal probability…
The sum-of-squares (SoS) hierarchy is a powerful technique based on semi-definite programming that can be used for both classical and quantum optimization problems. This hierarchy goes under several names; in particular, in quantum…
This paper is devoted to the problem of minimizing a sum of rational functions over a basic semialgebraic set. We provide a hierarchy of sum of squares (SOS) relaxations that is dual to the generalized moment problem approach due to…
For any $\varepsilon > 0$, we prove that $k$-Dimensional Matching is hard to approximate within a factor of $k/(12 + \varepsilon)$ for large $k$ unless $\textsf{NP} \subseteq \textsf{BPP}$. Listed in Karp's 21 $\textsf{NP}$-complete…
This thesis investigates the extent to which the optimal value of a constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) can be approximated by some sentence of fixed point logic with counting (FPC). It is known that, assuming $\mathsf{P} \neq…
We consider potentially non-convex optimization problems, for which optimal rates of approximation depend on the dimension of the parameter space and the smoothness of the function to be optimized. In this paper, we propose an algorithm…
We consider the Moment-SOS hierarchy in polynomial optimization. We first provide a sufficient condition to solve the truncated K-moment problem associated with a given degree-$2n$ pseudo-moment sequence $\phi$ n and a semi-algebraic set $K…
Montanari and Richard (2015) asked whether a natural semidefinite programming (SDP) relaxation can effectively optimize $\mathbf{x}^{\top}\mathbf{W} \mathbf{x}$ over $\|\mathbf{x}\| = 1$ with $x_i \geq 0$ for all coordinates $i$, where…
The densest k-subgraph (DkS) problem (i.e. find a size k subgraph with maximum number of edges), is one of the notorious problems in approximation algorithms. There is a significant gap between known upper and lower bounds for DkS: the…
We study exact matrix completion from partially available data with hidden connectivity patterns. Exact matrix completion was shown to be possible recently by Cosse and Demanet in 2021 with Lasserre's relaxation using the trace of the…
We prove that the degree 4 sum-of-squares (SOS) relaxation of the clique number of the Paley graph on a prime number $p$ of vertices has value at least $\Omega(p^{1/3})$. This is in contrast to the widely believed conjecture that the actual…
For an $n$-variate order-$d$ tensor $A$, define $ A_{\max} := \sup_{\| x \|_2 = 1} \langle A , x^{\otimes d} \rangle$ to be the maximum value taken by the tensor on the unit sphere. It is known that for a random tensor with i.i.d $\pm 1$…
We introduce a convergent hierarchy of lower bounds on the minimum value of a real form over the unit sphere. The main practical advantage of our hierarchy over the real sum-of-squares (RSOS) hierarchy is that the lower bound at each level…
The standard moment-sum-of-squares (SOS) hierarchy is a powerful method for solving global polynomial optimization problems. However, its convergence relies on Putinar's Positivstellensatz, which requires the feasible set to satisfy the…
The efficiency of modern optimization methods, coupled with increasing computational resources, has led to the possibility of real-time optimization algorithms acting in safety critical roles. There is a considerable body of mathematical…