In this paper, we study the smallest non-zero eigenvalue of the sample covariance matrices $\mathcal{S}(Y)=YY^*$, where $Y=(y_{ij})$ is an $M\times N$ matrix with iid mean $0$ variance $N^{-1}$ entries. We prove a phase transition for its distribution, induced by the fatness of the tail of $y_{ij}$'s. More specifically, we assume that $y_{ij}$ is symmetrically distributed with tail probability $\mathbb{P}(|\sqrt{N}y_{ij}|\geq x)\sim x^{-\alpha}$ when $x\to \infty$, for some $\alpha\in (2,4)$. We show the following conclusions: (i). When $\alpha>\frac83$, the smallest eigenvalue follows the Tracy-Widom law on scale $N^{-\frac23}$; (ii). When $2<\alpha<\frac83$, the smallest eigenvalue follows the Gaussian law on scale $N^{-\frac{\alpha}{4}}$; (iii). When $\alpha=\frac83$, the distribution is given by an interpolation between Tracy-Widom and Gaussian; (iv). In case $\alpha\leq \frac{10}{3}$, in addition to the left edge of the MP law, a deterministic shift of order $N^{1-\frac{\alpha}{2}}$ shall be subtracted from the smallest eigenvalue, in both the Tracy-Widom law and the Gaussian law. Overall speaking, our proof strategy is inspired by \cite{ALY} which is originally done for the bulk regime of the L\'{e}vy Wigner matrices. In addition to various technical complications arising from the bulk-to-edge extension, two ingredients are needed for our derivation: an intermediate left edge local law based on a simple but effective matrix minor argument, and a mesoscopic CLT for the linear spectral statistic with asymptotic expansion for its expectation.
We study the numerical integration of functions from isotropic Sobolev spaces $W_p^s([0,1]^d)$ using finitely many function evaluations within randomized algorithms, aiming for the smallest possible probabilistic error guarantee $\varepsilon > 0$ at confidence level $1-\delta \in (0,1)$. For spaces consisting of continuous functions, non-linear Monte Carlo methods with optimal confidence properties have already been known, in few cases even linear methods that succeed in that respect. In this paper we promote a new method called stratified control variates (SCV) and by it show that already linear methods achieve optimal probabilistic error rates in the high smoothness regime without the need to adjust algorithmic parameters to the uncertainty $\delta$. We also analyse a version of SCV in the low smoothness regime where $W_p^s([0,1]^d)$ may contain functions with singularities. Here, we observe a polynomial dependence of the error on $\delta^{-1}$ which cannot be avoided for linear methods. This is worse than what is known to be possible using non-linear algorithms where only a logarithmic dependence on $\delta^{-1}$ occurs if we tune in for a specific value of $\delta$.
In this work, we develop a numerical method to study the error estimates of the $\alpha$-stable central limit theorem under sublinear expectation with $\alpha \in(0,2)$, whose limit distribution can be characterized by a fully nonlinear integro-differential equation (PIDE). Based on the sequence of independent random variables, we propose a discrete approximation scheme for the fully nonlinear PIDE. With the help of the nonlinear stochastic analysis techniques and numerical analysis tools, we establish the error bounds for the discrete approximation scheme, which in turn provides a general error bound for the robust $\alpha$-stable central limit theorem, including the integrable case $\alpha \in(1,2)$ as well as the non-integrable case $\alpha \in(0,1]$. Finally, we provide some concrete examples to illustrate our main results and derive the precise convergence rates.
We expound on some known lower bounds of the quadratic Wasserstein distance between random vectors in $\mathbb{R}^n$ with an emphasis on affine transformations that have been used in manifold learning of data in Wasserstein space. In particular, we give concrete lower bounds for rotated copies of random vectors in $\mathbb{R}^2$ with uncorrelated components by computing the Bures metric between the covariance matrices. We also derive upper bounds for compositions of affine maps which yield a fruitful variety of diffeomorphisms applied to an initial data measure. We apply these bounds to various distributions including those lying on a 1-dimensional manifold in $\mathbb{R}^2$ and illustrate the quality of the bounds. Finally, we give a framework for mimicking handwritten digit or alphabet datasets that can be applied in a manifold learning framework.
We consider Gibbs distributions, which are families of probability distributions over a discrete space $\Omega$ with probability mass function of the form $\mu^\Omega_\beta(\omega) \propto e^{\beta H(\omega)}$ for $\beta$ in an interval $[\beta_{\min}, \beta_{\max}]$ and $H( \omega ) \in \{0 \} \cup [1, n]$. The partition function is the normalization factor $Z(\beta)=\sum_{\omega \in\Omega}e^{\beta H(\omega)}$. Two important parameters of these distributions are the log partition ratio $q = \log \tfrac{Z(\beta_{\max})}{Z(\beta_{\min})}$ and the counts $c_x = |H^{-1}(x)|$. These are correlated with system parameters in a number of physical applications and sampling algorithms. Our first main result is to estimate the counts $c_x$ using roughly $\tilde O( \frac{q}{\varepsilon^2})$ samples for general Gibbs distributions and $\tilde O( \frac{n^2}{\varepsilon^2} )$ samples for integer-valued distributions (ignoring some second-order terms and parameters), and we show this is optimal up to logarithmic factors. We illustrate with improved algorithms for counting connected subgraphs, independent sets, and perfect matchings. As a key subroutine, we also develop algorithms to compute the partition function $Z$ using $\tilde O(\frac{q}{\varepsilon^2})$ samples for general Gibbs distributions and using $\tilde O(\frac{n^2}{\varepsilon^2})$ samples for integer-valued distributions.
A conjecture attributed to Smith states that every pair of longest cycles in a $k$-connected graph intersect each other in at least $k$ vertices. In this paper, we show that every pair of longest cycles in a~$k$-connected graph on $n$ vertices intersect each other in at least~$\min\{n,8k-n-16\}$ vertices, which confirms Smith's conjecture when $k\geq (n+16)/7$. An analog conjecture for paths instead of cycles was stated by Hippchen. By a simple reduction, we relate both conjectures, showing that Hippchen's conjecture is valid when either $k \leq 6$ or $k \geq (n+9)/7$.
Given a set of $K$ probability densities, we consider the multimarginal generative modeling problem of learning a joint distribution that recovers these densities as marginals. The structure of this joint distribution should identify multi-way correspondences among the prescribed marginals. We formalize an approach to this task within a generalization of the stochastic interpolant framework, leading to efficient learning algorithms built upon dynamical transport of measure. Our generative models are defined by velocity and score fields that can be characterized as the minimizers of simple quadratic objectives, and they are defined on a simplex that generalizes the time variable in the usual dynamical transport framework. The resulting transport on the simplex is influenced by all marginals, and we show that multi-way correspondences can be extracted. The identification of such correspondences has applications to style transfer, algorithmic fairness, and data decorruption. In addition, the multimarginal perspective enables an efficient algorithm for reducing the dynamical transport cost in the ordinary two-marginal setting. We demonstrate these capacities with several numerical examples.
We develop sampling algorithms to fit Bayesian hierarchical models, the computational complexity of which scales linearly with the number of observations and the number of parameters in the model. We focus on crossed random effect and nested multilevel models, which are used ubiquitously in applied sciences. The posterior dependence in both classes is sparse: in crossed random effects models it resembles a random graph, whereas in nested multilevel models it is tree-structured. For each class we identify a framework for scalable computation, building on previous work. Methods for crossed models are based on extensions of appropriately designed collapsed Gibbs samplers, where we introduce the idea of local centering; while methods for nested models are based on sparse linear algebra and data augmentation. We provide a theoretical analysis of the proposed algorithms in some simplified settings, including a comparison with previously proposed methodologies and an average-case analysis based on random graph theory. Numerical experiments, including two challenging real data analyses on predicting electoral results and real estate prices, compare with off-the-shelf Hamiltonian Monte Carlo, displaying drastic improvement in performance.
We study the phase reconstruction of signals $f$ belonging to complex Gaussian shift-invariant spaces $V^\infty(\varphi)$ from spectrogram measurements $|\mathcal{G} f(X)|$ where $\mathcal{G}$ is the Gabor transform and $X \subseteq \mathbb{R}^2$. An explicit reconstruction formula will demonstrate that such signals can be recovered from measurements located on parallel lines in the time-frequency plane by means of a Riesz basis expansion. Moreover, connectedness assumptions on $|f|$ result in stability estimates in the situation where one aims to reconstruct $f$ on compact intervals. Driven by a recent observation that signals in Gaussian shift-invariant spaces are determined by lattice measurements [Grohs, P., Liehr, L., Injectivity of Gabor phase retrieval from lattice measurements, Appl. Comput. Harmon. Anal. 62 (2023), pp. 173-193] we prove a sampling result on the stable approximation from finitely many spectrogram samples. The resulting algorithm provides a provably stable and convergent approximation technique. In addition, it constitutes a method of approximating signals in function spaces beyond $V^\infty(\varphi)$, such as Paley-Wiener spaces.
The property that the velocity $\boldsymbol{u}$ belongs to $L^\infty(0,T;L^2(\Omega)^d)$ is an essential requirement in the definition of energy solutions of models for incompressible fluids. It is, therefore, highly desirable that the solutions produced by discretisation methods are uniformly stable in the $L^\infty(0,T;L^2(\Omega)^d)$-norm. In this work, we establish that this is indeed the case for Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) discretisations (in time and space) of non-Newtonian models with $p$-structure, assuming that $p\geq \frac{3d+2}{d+2}$; the time discretisation is equivalent to the RadauIIA Implicit Runge-Kutta method. We also prove (weak) convergence of the numerical scheme to the weak solution of the system; this type of convergence result for schemes based on quadrature seems to be new. As an auxiliary result, we also derive Gagliardo-Nirenberg-type inequalities on DG spaces, which might be of independent interest.
The greedy and nearest-neighbor TSP heuristics can both have $\log n$ approximation factors from optimal in worst case, even just for $n$ points in Euclidean space. In this note, we show that this approximation factor is only realized when the optimal tour is unusually short. In particular, for points from any fixed $d$-Ahlfor's regular metric space (which includes any $d$-manifold like the $d$-cube $[0,1]^d$ in the case $d$ is an integer but also fractals of dimension $d$ when $d$ is real-valued), our results imply that the greedy and nearest-neighbor heuristics have \emph{additive} errors from optimal on the order of the \emph{optimal} tour length through \emph{random} points in the same space, for $d>1$.