Related papers: Reachability of gradient descent
Subgradient methods comprise a fundamental class of nonsmooth optimization algorithms. Classical results show that certain subgradient methods converge sublinearly for general Lipschitz convex functions and converge linearly for convex…
We perform the first tight convergence analysis of the gradient method with varying step sizes when applied to smooth hypoconvex (weakly convex) functions. Hypoconvex functions are smooth nonconvex functions whose curvature is bounded and…
We show that gradient descent converges to a local minimizer, almost surely with random initialization. This is proved by applying the Stable Manifold Theorem from dynamical systems theory.
We study subgradient sequences of locally Lipschitz functions definable in a polynomially bounded o-minimal structure. We show that the diameter of any subgradient sequence is related to the variation in function values, with error terms…
Motivated by conforming finite element methods for elliptic problems of second order, we analyze the approximation of the gradient of a target function by continuous piecewise polynomial functions over a simplicial mesh. The main result is…
This paper proposes a novel approach to adaptive step sizes in stochastic gradient descent (SGD) by utilizing quantities that we have identified as numerically traceable -- the Lipschitz constant for gradients and a concept of the local…
The paper presents a new descent algorithm for locally Lipschitz continuous functions $f:X\to\mathbb{R}$. The selection of a descent direction at some iteration point $x$ combines an approximation of the set-valued gradient of $f$ on a…
Gradient descent (GD) is a collection of continuous optimization methods that have achieved immeasurable success in practice. Owing to data science applications, GD with diminishing step sizes has become a prominent variant. While this…
A vast literature on convergence guarantees for gradient descent and derived methods exists at the moment. However, a simple practical situation remains unexplored: when a fixed step size is used, can we expect gradient descent to converge…
In this paper, we first study nonsmooth steepest descent method for nonsmooth functions defined on Hilbert space and establish the corresponding algorithm by proximal subgradients. Then, we use this algorithm to find stationary points for…
We consider the long-term dynamics of the vanishing stepsize subgradient method in the case when the objective function is neither smooth nor convex. We assume that this function is locally Lipschitz and path differentiable, i.e., admits a…
The main result of this paper is: {\bf Theorem.} Let $f:\mathbb{R}^k\rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ be a $C^{1}$ function, so that $\nabla f$ is locally Lipschitz continuous. Assume moreover that $f$ is $C^2$ near its generalised saddle points. Fix…
Convergence of the gradient descent algorithm has been attracting renewed interest due to its utility in deep learning applications. Even as multiple variants of gradient descent were proposed, the assumption that the gradient of the…
We prove the first convergence guarantees for a subgradient method minimizing a generic Lipschitz function over generic Lipschitz inequality constraints. No smoothness or convexity (or weak convexity) assumptions are made. Instead, we…
We show that the subgradient method converges only to local minimizers when applied to generic Lipschitz continuous and subdifferentially regular functions that are definable in an o-minimal structure. At a high level, the argument we…
The analysis of gradient descent-type methods typically relies on the Lipschitz continuity of the objective gradient. This generally requires an expensive hyperparameter tuning process to appropriately calibrate a stepsize for a given…
Gradient descent is the primary workhorse for optimizing large-scale problems in machine learning. However, its performance is highly sensitive to the choice of the learning rate. A key limitation of gradient descent is its lack of natural…
We study the oracle complexity of nonsmooth nonconvex optimization, with the algorithm assumed to have access only to local function information. It has been shown by Davis, Drusvyatskiy, and Jiang (2023) that for nonsmooth Lipschitz…
A very simple unidimensional function with Lipschitz continuous gradient is constructed such that the ADAM algorithm with constant stepsize, started from the origin, diverges when applied to minimize this function in the absence of noise on…
In this paper we propose a distributed version of a randomized block-coordinate descent method for minimizing the sum of a partially separable smooth convex function and a fully separable non-smooth convex function. Under the assumption of…