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A variant of consensus based distributed gradient descent (\textbf{DGD}) is studied for finite sums of smooth but possibly non-convex functions. In particular, the local gradient term in the fixed step-size iteration of each agent is…
In this work, we analyze the global convergence property of coordinate gradient descent with random choice of coordinates and stepsizes for non-convex optimization problems. Under generic assumptions, we prove that the algorithm iterate…
Gradient descent algorithm is the most utilized method when optimizing machine learning issues. However, there exists many local minimums and saddle points in the loss function, especially for high dimensional non-convex optimization…
In centralized settings, it is well known that stochastic gradient descent (SGD) avoids saddle points and converges to local minima in nonconvex problems. However, similar guarantees are lacking for distributed first-order algorithms. The…
Convergence to a saddle point for convex-concave functions has been studied for decades, while recent years has seen a surge of interest in non-convex (zero-sum) smooth games, motivated by their recent wide applications. It remains an…
We propose a derivative-free saddle-search algorithm designed to locate transition states using only function evaluations. The algorithm employs a nested architecture consisting of an inner eigenvector search and an outer saddle-point…
The paper studies a distributed gradient descent (DGD) process and considers the problem of showing that in nonconvex optimization problems, DGD typically converges to local minima rather than saddle points. The paper considers…
Gradient Descent Ascent (GDA) methods for min-max optimization problems typically produce oscillatory behavior that can lead to instability, e.g., in bilinear settings. To address this problem, we introduce a dissipation term into the GDA…
This paper proposes and analyzes an iterative minimization formulation for search- ing index-1 saddle points of an energy function. This formulation differs from other eigenvector-following methods by constructing a new objective function…
A major approach to saddle point optimization $\min_x\max_y f(x, y)$ is a gradient based approach as is popularized by generative adversarial networks (GANs). In contrast, we analyze an alternative approach relying only on an oracle that…
Gradient Descent Ascent (GDA) methods are the mainstream algorithms for minimax optimization in generative adversarial networks (GANs). Convergence properties of GDA have drawn significant interest in the recent literature. Specifically,…
We prove local convergence of several notable gradient descent algorithms used in machine learning, for which standard stochastic gradient descent theory does not apply directly. This includes, first, online algorithms for recurrent models…
The broad success of theoretical and experimental quantum optimal control is intimately connected to the topology of the underlying control landscape. For several common quantum control goals, including the maximization of an observable…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) algorithm is the method of choice in many machine learning tasks thanks to its scalability and efficiency in dealing with large-scale problems. In this paper, we focus on the shuffling version of SGD which…
Finding saddle points of dynamical systems is an important problem in practical applications such as the study of rare events of molecular systems. Gentlest ascent dynamics (GAD) is one of a number of algorithms in existence that attempt to…
Gradient descent (GD) and stochastic gradient descent (SGD) are the workhorses of large-scale machine learning. While classical theory focused on analyzing the performance of these methods in convex optimization problems, the most notable…
Saddle points provide a hierarchical view of the energy landscape, revealing transition pathways and interconnected basins of attraction, and offering insight into the global structure, metastability, and possible collective mechanisms of…
The gentlest ascent dynamics (GAD) (Nonlinearity, vol. 24, no. 6, p1831, 2011) is a continuous time dynamics coupling both the position and the direction variables to efficiently locate the saddle point with a given index. These saddle…
In this paper we consider solving saddle point problems using two variants of Gradient Descent-Ascent algorithms, Extra-gradient (EG) and Optimistic Gradient Descent Ascent (OGDA) methods. We show that both of these algorithms admit a…
We consider distributed smooth nonconvex unconstrained optimization over networks, modeled as a connected graph. We examine the behavior of distributed gradient-based algorithms near strict saddle points. Specifically, we establish that (i)…