Related papers: Optimal first-order methods for convex functions w…
Zeroth-order optimization aims to minimize an objective function using only function evaluations, and is therefore fundamental in black-box optimization, hyperparameter tuning, bandit learning, and adversarial machine learning. While…
Smooth convex minimization over the unit trace-norm ball is an important optimization problem in machine learning, signal processing, statistics and other fields, that underlies many tasks in which one wishes to recover a low-rank matrix…
Quasar-convex functions form a broad nonconvex class with applications to linear dynamical systems, generalized linear models, and Riemannian optimization, among others. Current nearly optimal algorithms work only in affine spaces due to…
Various first order approaches have been proposed in the literature to solve Linear Programming (LP) problems, recently leading to practically efficient solvers for large-scale LPs. From a theoretical perspective, linear convergence rates…
Many recent studies on first-order methods (FOMs) focus on \emph{composite non-convex non-smooth} optimization with linear and/or nonlinear function constraints. Upper (or worst-case) complexity bounds have been established for these…
In this work, we show that the heavy-ball ($\HB$) method provably does not reach an accelerated convergence rate on smooth strongly convex problems. More specifically, we show that for any condition number and any choice of algorithmic…
The graduated optimization approach, also known as the continuation method, is a popular heuristic to solving non-convex problems that has received renewed interest over the last decade. Despite its popularity, very little is known in terms…
We propose first order algorithms for convex optimization problems where the feasible set is described by a large number of convex inequalities that is to be explored by subgradient projections. The first algorithm is an adaptation of a…
Higher-order tensor methods were recently proposed for minimizing smooth convex and nonconvex functions. Higher-order algorithms accelerate the convergence of the classical first-order methods thanks to the higher-order derivatives used in…
In this work, we present a novel algorithm design methodology that finds the optimal algorithm as a function of inequalities. Specifically, we restrict convergence analyses of algorithms to use a prespecified subset of inequalities, rather…
This paper provides a theoretical and numerical comparison of classical first-order splitting methods for solving smooth convex optimization problems and cocoercive equations. From a theoretical point of view, we compare convergence rates…
In this work, we study first-order algorithms for solving Bilevel Optimization (BO) where the objective functions are smooth but possibly nonconvex in both levels and the variables are restricted to closed convex sets. As a first step, we…
In this paper, we study a stochastic strongly convex optimization problem and propose three classes of variable sample-size stochastic first-order methods including the standard stochastic gradient descent method, its accelerated variant,…
We present a general technique for the analysis of first-order methods. The technique relies on the construction of a duality gap for an appropriate approximation of the objective function, where the function approximation improves as the…
Proximal operations are among the most common primitives appearing in both practical and theoretical (or high-level) optimization methods. This basic operation typically consists in solving an intermediary (hopefully simpler) optimization…
The theory of integral quadratic constraints (IQCs) allows the certification of exponential convergence of interconnected systems containing nonlinear or uncertain elements. In this work, we adapt the IQC theory to study first-order methods…
We study the problem of zero-order optimization of a strongly convex function. The goal is to find the minimizer of the function by a sequential exploration of its values, under measurement noise. We study the impact of higher order…
We present a unified convergence analysis for first order convex optimization methods using the concept of strong Lyapunov conditions. Combining this with suitable time scaling factors, we are able to handle both convex and strong convex…
We introduce new optimized first-order methods for smooth unconstrained convex minimization. Drori and Teboulle recently described a numerical method for computing the $N$-iteration optimal step coefficients in a class of first-order…
We present exact mixed-integer linear programming formulations for verifying the performance of first-order methods for parametric quadratic optimization. We formulate the verification problem as a mixed-integer linear program where the…