arXiv:2609. 03762v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: The computation of the Bures-Wasserstein (BW) barycenter of an ensemble of positive definite matrices arises throughout machine learning, optimal transport, and quantum information.
By A. Afham
The paper introduces a Projected Riemannian Gradient Descent (RGD) algorithm for computing the Bures‑Wasserstein barycenter of positive definite matrices, achieving dimension‑independent linear convergence at unit step size. It resolves a previous dichotomy by showing that clipping eigenvalues to a fixed interval yields a closed‑form, non‑expansive projection in the BW metric, allowing the algorithm to match the empirical speed of unit‑step RGD while maintaining theoretical guarantees. The method also extends to the invariant matrix projection problem, providing a unified dimension‑independent analysis.
arXiv:2609. 20701v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: We study efficient algorithms for realizing the first-order oracle complexity of optimization of $G$-Lipschitz convex functions with respect to the $\ell_{q}$-norm over an $\ell_{p}$-ball of radius $R$, where $1\leq p,q\leq \infty$.
By David Mart\'inez-Rubio, Crist\'obal Guzm\'an
We study efficient algorithms for realizing the first-order oracle complexity of optimization of $G$-Lipschitz convex functions with respect to the $\ell_{q}$-norm over an $\ell_{p}$-ball of radius $R$, where $1\leq p,q\leq \infty$. For $p<q$, we obtain error $\widetilde{O}_{p,q}(GR/T^{1/p-(1/q-1/2)_{+}})$ after $T$ oracle queries, efficiently realizing the nearly optimal rates of (MBG+26), thereby resolving the nonsmooth end of the COLT 2015 open problem (Guz15b).
arXiv:2609. 21880v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: We study the optimization of convex objectives with $(L,\kappa-1)$-H\"older-continuous gradients in $\ell_q$ over $R B_p^d$, $1<\kappa\le 2$.
By David Mart\'inez-Rubio, Brian Bullins, Crist\'obal Guzm\'an, Mathieu Molina
arXiv:2610. 00545v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We study adversarial online maximization of nonnegative, non-monotone DR-submodular functions over compact convex down-closed sets.
By Vaneet Aggarwal
arXiv:2609. 20687v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: We study first-order black-box convex optimization over an $\ell_p$-ball for objectives Lipschitz in the $\ell_q$-norm, solving in the affirmative the nonsmooth version of the COLT open question (Guz15b) on whether the geometry of a smaller feasible set ($p < q$) can improve convergence rates in convex optimization, and matching prior lower bounds up to logarithmic factors.
By David Mart\'inez-Rubio, Brian Bullins, Crist\'obal Guzm\'an, Mathieu Molina
arXiv:2608. 08463v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: We study second- and higher-order methods for solving smooth monotone variational inequalities (MVI).
By Lesi Chen, Xinliang Zhang, Hengyu Wang, Chengchang Liu, Yongchao Chen, Jingzhao Zhang
arXiv:2607. 16384v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: For stochastic gradient descent (SGD) with a constant stepsize $\alpha$, the invariant law of the iterates, centered at a minimizer, describes the behavior of the algorithm over long time horizons.
By Jingyi Zhang, Cheng Mao, Debankur Mukherjee
The paper presents the first asymptotic convergence guarantees for the Muon algorithm, showing that with suitable hyperparameters the iterates satisfy ≠≠ ∥∇f(x_k)∥ → 0 and, under a global Polyak-ℒojasiewicz condition, the function values converge linearly. It reveals that Muon’s implicit regularization acts as a bounded preconditioner, framing Muon as a preconditioned Polyak heavy‑ball method and enabling a Lyapunov analysis. Building on this insight, the authors introduce Muesterov, a Nesterov‑based variant, and prove it shares the same convergence guarantees, extending the theory beyond the heavy‑ball setting; numerical experiments on a scalar cross‑entropy problem and preliminary nanoGPT simulations support the theoretical findings.
By Arthur C. B. de Oliveira, Dhruv D. Jatkar, Guilherme S. Vicinansa, Eduardo D. Sontag
arXiv:2608. 01658v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: For mirror descent generated by a Legendre kernel, perhaps one of the most basic question in optimization is this: must every accumulation point of a bounded mirror descent sequence be Karush--Kuhn--Tucker (KKT) stationary under proper stepsizes?
By Kuangyu Ding, Kim-Chuan Toh
arXiv:2110. 03950v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: We study the problem of finding approximate first-order stationary points in optimization problems of the form $\min_{x \in X} \max_{y \in Y} f(x,y)$, where the sets $X,Y$ are convex and $Y$ is compact.
By Dmitrii M. Ostrovskii, Babak Barazandeh, Meisam Razaviyayn