Related papers: The Geometry of Efficient Nonconvex Sampling

An algorithm for sampling exactly from the normal distribution is given. The algorithm reads some number of uniformly distributed random digits in a given base and generates an initial portion of the representation of a normal deviate in…

We consider robust covariance estimation with group symmetry constraints. Non-Gaussian covariance estimation, e.g., Tyler scatter estimator and Multivariate Generalized Gaussian distribution methods, usually involve non-convex minimization…

This paper reviews the gradient sampling methodology for solving nonsmooth, nonconvex optimization problems. An intuitively straightforward gradient sampling algorithm is stated and its convergence properties are summarized. Throughout this…

We propose a novel method of efficient upsampling of a single natural image. Current methods for image upsampling tend to produce high-resolution images with either blurry salient edges, or loss of fine textural detail, or spurious noise…

Conventional approximations to Bayesian inference rely on either approximations by statistics such as mean and covariance or by point particles. Recent advances such as the ensemble Gaussian mixture filter have generalized these notions to…

We show that the volume of a convex body in $\mathbb{R}^{n}$ in the general membership oracle model can be computed to within relative error $\varepsilon$ using $\widetilde{O}(n^{3.5}\psi^{2} + n^3/\varepsilon^{2})$ oracle queries, where…

We present an optimization algorithm that can identify a global minimum of a potentially nonconvex smooth function with high probability, assuming the Gibbs measure of the potential satisfies a logarithmic Sobolev inequality. Our…

Stratified sampling is a fast and simple method to generate point sets with uniform distribution in hypercubes. However, for the most common paraxial stratfication it has the prominent drawback that the number of sampled points in n…

We study the Riemannian Langevin Algorithm for the problem of sampling from a distribution with density $\nu$ with respect to the natural measure on a manifold with metric $g$. We assume that the target density satisfies a log-Sobolev…

The goal of this article is to introduce the Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) method -- a Hamiltonian dynamics-inspired algorithm for sampling from a Gibbs density $\pi(x) \propto e^{-f(x)}$. We focus on the "idealized" case, where one can…

We give a highly efficient "semi-agnostic" algorithm for learning univariate probability distributions that are well approximated by piecewise polynomial density functions. Let $p$ be an arbitrary distribution over an interval $I$ which is…

In the last few years, the notion of symmetry has provided a powerful and essential lens to view several optimization or sampling problems that arise in areas such as theoretical computer science, statistics, machine learning, quantum…

Let K be a convex body in $R^d$. A random polytope is the convex hull $[x_1,...,x_n]$ of finitely many points chosen at random in K. $\Bbb E(K,n)$ is the expectation of the volume of a random polytope of n randomly chosen points. I.…

Uniformly regular equilibrium problems are natural generalizations of abstract equilibrium prob lems and they are defined over the uniformly prox-regular nonconvex sets. Some new efficient implicit methods for solving uniformly regular…

We develop an algorithm for sampling from the unitary invariant random matrix ensembles. The algorithm is based on the representation of their eigenvalues as a determinantal point process whose kernel is given in terms of orthogonal…

In this article we consider sampling from log concave distributions in Hamiltonian setting, without assuming that the objective gradient is globally Lipschitz. We propose two algorithms based on monotone polygonal (tamed) Euler schemes, to…

We consider nonconvex obstacle avoidance where a robot described by nonlinear dynamics and a nonconvex shape has to avoid nonconvex obstacles. Obstacle avoidance is a fundamental problem in robotics and well studied in control. However,…

The uniform sampling of convex regions in high dimension is an important computational issue, from both theoretical and applied point of view. The hit-and-run montecarlo algorithms are the most efficient methods known to perform it and one…

Let $S$ be a finite set, and $X_1,\ldots,X_n$ an i.i.d. uniform sample from $S$. To estimate the size $|S|$, without further structure, one can wait for repeats and use the birthday problem. This requires a sample size of the order…

We propose a new discretization of the mirror-Langevin diffusion and give a crisp proof of its convergence. Our analysis uses relative convexity/smoothness and self-concordance, ideas which originated in convex optimization, together with a…