Related papers: A Stochastic Algorithm for Searching Saddle Points…
Recently, saddle point problems have received much attention due to their powerful modeling capability for a lot of problems from diverse domains. Applications of these problems occur in many applied areas, such as robust optimization,…
Steady states are invaluable in the study of dynamical systems. High-dimensional dynamical systems, due to a separation of time-scales, often evolve towards a lower dimensional manifold $M$. We introduce an approach to locate saddle points…
This paper focuses on the distributed optimization of stochastic saddle point problems. The first part of the paper is devoted to lower bounds for the centralized and decentralized distributed methods for smooth (strongly) convex-(strongly)…
In this paper, we propose a stochastic search algorithm for solving general optimization problems with little structure. The algorithm iteratively finds high quality solutions by randomly sampling candidate solutions from a parameterized…
This paper presents an algorithm for the efficient approximation of the saddle-extremum persistence diagram of a scalar field. Vidal et al. introduced recently a fast algorithm for such an approximation (by interrupting a progressive…
In this work, we consider a time-varying stochastic saddle point problem in which the objective is revealed sequentially, and the data distribution depends on the decision variables. Problems of this type express the distributional…
In this work, we consider solving optimization problems with a stochastic objective and deterministic equality constraints. We propose a Trust-Region Sequential Quadratic Programming method to find both first- and second-order stationary…
In this paper, we introduce a multilevel algorithm for approximating variational formulations of symmetric saddle point systems. The algorithm is based on availability of families of stable finite element pairs and on the availability of…
We examine the behavior of accelerated gradient methods in smooth nonconvex unconstrained optimization, focusing in particular on their behavior near strict saddle points. Accelerated methods are iterative methods that typically step along…
We study the asymptotic behavior of second-order algorithms mixing Newton's method and inertial gradient descent in non-convex landscapes. We show that, despite the Newtonian behavior of these methods, they almost always escape strict…
In this paper we present a novel quasi-Newton algorithm for use in stochastic optimisation. Quasi-Newton methods have had an enormous impact on deterministic optimisation problems because they afford rapid convergence and computationally…
The problem of computing saddle points is important in certain problems in numerical partial differential equations and computational chemistry, and is often solved numerically by a minimization problem over a set of mountain passes. We…
Momentum Stochastic Gradient Descent (MSGD) algorithm has been widely applied to many nonconvex optimization problems in machine learning, e.g., training deep neural networks, variational Bayesian inference, and etc. Despite its empirical…
We describe a line-search algorithm which achieves the best-known worst-case complexity results for problems with a certain "strict saddle" property that has been observed to hold in low-rank matrix optimization problems. Our algorithm is…
The energy landscape of multiverse cosmology is often modeled by a multi-dimensional random Gaussian potential. The physical predictions of such models crucially depend on the eigenvalue distribution of the Hessian matrix at potential…
We analyze the semi-implicit scheme of high-index saddle dynamics, which provides a powerful numerical method for finding the any-index saddle points and constructing the solution landscape. Compared with the explicit schemes of saddle…
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…
Optimization algorithms are unlikely to converge to strict saddle points. Proofs to that effect rely on the Center-Stable Manifold Theorem (CSMT), casting algorithms as dynamical systems: $x_{k+1} = g_k(x_k)$. In its standard form, the CSMT…
In this paper, a general stochastic optimization procedure is studied, unifying several variants of the stochastic gradient descent such as, among others, the stochastic heavy ball method, the Stochastic Nesterov Accelerated Gradient…
We study the unconstrained and the minimax saddle point variants of the convex multi-stage stochastic programming problem, where consecutive decisions are coupled through the objective functions, rather than through the constraints. We…