Related papers: Improved covariance estimation: optimal robustness…
Let $X$ be a centered random vector taking values in $\mathbb{R}^d$ and let $\Sigma= \mathbb{E}(X\otimes X)$ be its covariance matrix. We show that if $X$ satisfies an $L_4-L_2$ norm equivalence, there is a covariance estimator…
We propose and analyze a new estimator of the covariance matrix that admits strong theoretical guarantees under weak assumptions on the underlying distribution, such as existence of moments of only low order. While estimation of covariance…
We consider the problem of estimating the covariance structure of a random vector $Y\in \mathbb R^d$ from a sample $Y_1,\ldots,Y_n$. We are interested in the situation when $d$ is large compared to $n$ but the covariance matrix $\Sigma$ of…
Let $\mathcal{Z} = \{Z_1, \dots, Z_n\} \stackrel{\mathrm{i.i.d.}}{\sim} P \subset \mathbb{R}^d$ from a distribution $P$ with mean zero and covariance $\Sigma$. Given a dataset $\mathcal{X}$ such that $d_{\mathrm{ham}}(\mathcal{X},…
Given i.i.d. observations of a random vector $X \in \mathbb{R}^p$, we study the problem of estimating both its covariance matrix $\Sigma^*$, and its inverse covariance or concentration matrix {$\Theta^* = (\Sigma^*)^{-1}$.} We estimate…
The dependency structure of multivariate data can be analyzed using the covariance matrix $\Sigma$. In many fields the precision matrix $\Sigma^{-1}$ is even more informative. As the sample covariance estimator is singular in…
Assume that $X_{1}, \ldots, X_{N}$ is an $\varepsilon$-contaminated sample of $N$ independent Gaussian vectors in $\mathbb{R}^d$ with mean $\mu$ and covariance $\Sigma$. In the strong $\varepsilon$-contamination model we assume that the…
Robust covariance estimation is the following, well-studied problem in high dimensional statistics: given $N$ samples from a $d$-dimensional Gaussian $\mathcal{N}(\boldsymbol{0}, \Sigma)$, but where an $\varepsilon$-fraction of the samples…
We study the problem of computationally efficient robust estimation of the covariance/scatter matrix of elliptical distributions -- that is, affine transformations of spherically symmetric distributions -- under the strong contamination…
In many practical situations we would like to estimate the covariance matrix of a set of variables from an insufficient amount of data. More specifically, if we have a set of $N$ independent, identically distributed measurements of an $M$…
We study the fundamental problem of estimating the mean of a $d$-dimensional distribution with covariance $\Sigma \preccurlyeq \sigma^2 I_d$ given $n$ samples. When $d = 1$, \cite{catoni} showed an estimator with error $(1+o(1)) \cdot…
Let $Y$ be a $d$-dimensional random vector with unknown mean $\mu$ and covariance matrix $\Sigma$. This paper is motivated by the problem of designing an estimator of $\Sigma$ that admits tight deviation bounds in the operator norm under…
In this work we consider the problem of estimating a high-dimensional $p \times p$ covariance matrix $\Sigma$, given $n$ observations of confounded data with covariance $\Sigma + \Gamma \Gamma^T$, where $\Gamma$ is an unknown $p \times q$…
The problem of estimating the covariance matrix $\Sigma$ of a $p$-variate distribution based on its $n$ observations arises in many data analysis contexts. While for $n>p$, the classical sample covariance matrix $\hat{\Sigma}_n$ is a good…
Most of the modern literature on robust mean estimation focuses on designing estimators which obtain optimal sub-Gaussian concentration bounds under minimal moment assumptions and sometimes also assuming contamination. This work looks at…
We study efficient algorithms for linear regression and covariance estimation in the absence of Gaussian assumptions on the underlying distributions of samples, making assumptions instead about only finitely-many moments. We focus on how…
A classical approach to accurately estimating the covariance matrix \Sigma of a p-variate normal distribution is to draw a sample of size n > p and form a sample covariance matrix. However, many modern applications operate with much smaller…
We revisit the problem of estimating the mean of a real-valued distribution, presenting a novel estimator with sub-Gaussian convergence: intuitively, "our estimator, on any distribution, is as accurate as the sample mean is for the Gaussian…
We study the problem of estimating the covariance matrix of a high-dimensional distribution when a small constant fraction of the samples can be arbitrarily corrupted. Recent work gave the first polynomial time algorithms for this problem…
We provide an estimator of the covariance matrix that achieves the optimal rate of convergence (up to constant factors) in the operator norm under two standard notions of data contamination: We allow the adversary to corrupt an…