Related papers: Quantum Lower Bounds for Finding Stationary Points…
We lower bound the complexity of finding $\epsilon$-stationary points (with gradient norm at most $\epsilon$) using stochastic first-order methods. In a well-studied model where algorithms access smooth, potentially non-convex functions…
It is well-known that given a bounded, smooth nonconvex function, standard gradient-based methods can find $\epsilon$-stationary points (where the gradient norm is less than $\epsilon$) in $\mathcal{O}(1/\epsilon^2)$ iterations. However,…
We study the first-order convex optimization problem, where we have black-box access to a (not necessarily smooth) function $f:\mathbb{R}^n \to \mathbb{R}$ and its (sub)gradient. Our goal is to find an $\epsilon$-approximate minimum of $f$…
We consider the problem of minimizing a continuous function given quantum access to a stochastic gradient oracle. We provide two new methods for the special case of minimizing a Lipschitz convex function. Each method obtains a dimension…
Finding approximate stationary points, i.e., points where the gradient is approximately zero, of non-convex but smooth objective functions $f$ over unrestricted $d$-dimensional domains is one of the most fundamental problems in classical…
We prove lower bounds on the complexity of finding $\epsilon$-stationary points (points $x$ such that $\|\nabla f(x)\| \le \epsilon$) of smooth, high-dimensional, and potentially non-convex functions $f$. We consider oracle-based complexity…
We establish lower bounds on the complexity of finding $\epsilon$-stationary points of smooth, non-convex high-dimensional functions using first-order methods. We prove that deterministic first-order methods, even applied to arbitrarily…
Recent results suggest that quantum computers possess the potential to speed up nonconvex optimization problems. However, a crucial factor for the implementation of quantum optimization algorithms is their robustness against experimental…
We design an algorithm which finds an $\epsilon$-approximate stationary point (with $\|\nabla F(x)\|\le \epsilon$) using $O(\epsilon^{-3})$ stochastic gradient and Hessian-vector products, matching guarantees that were previously available…
This paper considers the problem for finding the $(\delta,\epsilon)$-Goldstein stationary point of Lipschitz continuous objective, which is a rich function class to cover a great number of important applications. We construct a zeroth-order…
Finite-sum optimization has wide applications in machine learning, covering important problems such as support vector machines, regression, etc. In this paper, we initiate the study of solving finite-sum optimization problems by quantum…
We study fundamental limits of first-order stochastic optimization in a range of nonconvex settings, including L-smooth functions satisfying Quasar-Convexity (QC), Quadratic Growth (QG), and Restricted Secant Inequalities (RSI). While the…
We provide a first-order oracle complexity lower bound for finding stationary points of min-max optimization problems where the objective function is smooth, nonconvex in the minimization variable, and strongly concave in the maximization…
We present new algorithms for optimizing non-smooth, non-convex stochastic objectives based on a novel analysis technique. This improves the current best-known complexity for finding a $(\delta,\epsilon)$-stationary point from…
It is well-known that given a smooth, bounded-from-below, and possibly nonconvex function, standard gradient-based methods can find $\epsilon$-stationary points (with gradient norm less than $\epsilon$) in $\mathcal{O}(1/\epsilon^2)$…
In large-scale applications, such as machine learning, it is desirable to design non-convex optimization algorithms with a high degree of parallelization. In this work, we study the adaptive complexity of finding a stationary point, which…
Non-convex optimization plays a key role in a growing number of machine learning applications. This motivates the identification of specialized structure that enables sharper theoretical analysis. One such identified structure is…
We explore the potential for quantum speedups in convex optimization using discrete simulations of the Quantum Hamiltonian Descent (QHD) framework, as proposed by Leng et al., and establish the first rigorous query complexity bounds. We…
This paper studies the complexity for finding approximate stationary points of nonconvex-strongly-concave (NC-SC) smooth minimax problems, in both general and averaged smooth finite-sum settings. We establish nontrivial lower complexity…
Classical algorithms are often not effective for solving nonconvex optimization problems where local minima are separated by high barriers. In this paper, we explore possible quantum speedups for nonconvex optimization by leveraging the…