The numerical solution of a linear Schr\"odinger equation in the semiclassical regime is very well understood in a torus $\mathbb{T}^d$. A raft of modern computational methods are precise and affordable, while conserving energy and resolving high oscillations very well. This, however, is far from the case with regard to its solution in $\mathbb{R}^d$, a setting more suitable for many applications. In this paper we extend the theory of splitting methods to this end. The main idea is to derive the solution using a spectral method from a combination of solutions of the free Schr\"odinger equation and of linear scalar ordinary differential equations, in a symmetric Zassenhaus splitting method. This necessitates detailed analysis of certain orthonormal spectral bases on the real line and their evolution under the free Schr\"odinger operator.
We consider the question of adaptive data analysis within the framework of convex optimization. We ask how many samples are needed in order to compute $\epsilon$-accurate estimates of $O(1/\epsilon^2)$ gradients queried by gradient descent, and we provide two intermediate answers to this question. First, we show that for a general analyst (not necessarily gradient descent) $\Omega(1/\epsilon^3)$ samples are required. This rules out the possibility of a foolproof mechanism. Our construction builds upon a new lower bound (that may be of interest of its own right) for an analyst that may ask several non adaptive questions in a batch of fixed and known $T$ rounds of adaptivity and requires a fraction of true discoveries. We show that for such an analyst $\Omega (\sqrt{T}/\epsilon^2)$ samples are necessary. Second, we show that, under certain assumptions on the oracle, in an interaction with gradient descent $\tilde \Omega(1/\epsilon^{2.5})$ samples are necessary. Our assumptions are that the oracle has only \emph{first order access} and is \emph{post-hoc generalizing}. First order access means that it can only compute the gradients of the sampled function at points queried by the algorithm. Our assumption of \emph{post-hoc generalization} follows from existing lower bounds for statistical queries. More generally then, we provide a generic reduction from the standard setting of statistical queries to the problem of estimating gradients queried by gradient descent. These results are in contrast with classical bounds that show that with $O(1/\epsilon^2)$ samples one can optimize the population risk to accuracy of $O(\epsilon)$ but, as it turns out, with spurious gradients.
In a sports competition, a team might lose a powerful incentive to exert full effort if its final rank does not depend on the outcome of the matches still to be played. Therefore, the organiser should reduce the probability of such a situation to the extent possible. Our paper provides a classification scheme to identify these weakly (where one team is indifferent) or strongly (where both teams are indifferent) stakeless games. A statistical model is estimated to simulate the UEFA Champions League groups and compare the candidate schedules used in the 2021/22 season according to the competitiveness of the matches played in the last round(s). The option followed in four of the eight groups is found to be optimal under a wide set of parameters. Minimising the number of strongly stakeless matches is verified to be a likely goal in the computer draw of the fixture that remains hidden from the public.
Many existing algorithms for streaming geometric data analysis have been plagued by exponential dependencies in the space complexity, which are undesirable for processing high-dimensional data sets. In particular, once $d\geq\log n$, there are no known non-trivial streaming algorithms for problems such as maintaining convex hulls and L\"owner-John ellipsoids of $n$ points, despite a long line of work in streaming computational geometry since [AHV04]. We simultaneously improve these results to $\mathrm{poly}(d,\log n)$ bits of space by trading off with a $\mathrm{poly}(d,\log n)$ factor distortion. We achieve these results in a unified manner, by designing the first streaming algorithm for maintaining a coreset for $\ell_\infty$ subspace embeddings with $\mathrm{poly}(d,\log n)$ space and $\mathrm{poly}(d,\log n)$ distortion. Our algorithm also gives similar guarantees in the \emph{online coreset} model. Along the way, we sharpen results for online numerical linear algebra by replacing a log condition number dependence with a $\log n$ dependence, answering a question of [BDM+20]. Our techniques provide a novel connection between leverage scores, a fundamental object in numerical linear algebra, and computational geometry. For $\ell_p$ subspace embeddings, we give nearly optimal trade-offs between space and distortion for one-pass streaming algorithms. For instance, we give a deterministic coreset using $O(d^2\log n)$ space and $O((d\log n)^{1/2-1/p})$ distortion for $p>2$, whereas previous deterministic algorithms incurred a $\mathrm{poly}(n)$ factor in the space or the distortion [CDW18]. Our techniques have implications in the offline setting, where we give optimal trade-offs between the space complexity and distortion of subspace sketch data structures. To do this, we give an elementary proof of a "change of density" theorem of [LT80] and make it algorithmic.
Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) is a central tool in machine learning. We prove that SGD converges to zero loss, even with a fixed (non-vanishing) learning rate - in the special case of homogeneous linear classifiers with smooth monotone loss functions, optimized on linearly separable data. Previous works assumed either a vanishing learning rate, iterate averaging, or loss assumptions that do not hold for monotone loss functions used for classification, such as the logistic loss. We prove our result on a fixed dataset, both for sampling with or without replacement. Furthermore, for logistic loss (and similar exponentially-tailed losses), we prove that with SGD the weight vector converges in direction to the $L_2$ max margin vector as $O(1/\log(t))$ for almost all separable datasets, and the loss converges as $O(1/t)$ - similarly to gradient descent. Lastly, we examine the case of a fixed learning rate proportional to the minibatch size. We prove that in this case, the asymptotic convergence rate of SGD (with replacement) does not depend on the minibatch size in terms of epochs, if the support vectors span the data. These results may suggest an explanation to similar behaviors observed in deep networks, when trained with SGD.
Let $m$ be a positive integer and $p$ a prime. In this paper, we investigate the differential properties of the power mapping $x^{p^m+2}$ over $\mathbb{F}_{p^n}$, where $n=2m$ or $n=2m-1$. For the case $n=2m$, by transforming the derivative equation of $x^{p^m+2}$ and studying some related equations, we completely determine the differential spectrum of this power mapping. For the case $n=2m-1$, the derivative equation can be transformed to a polynomial of degree $p+3$. The problem is more difficult and we obtain partial results about the differential spectrum of $x^{p^m+2}$.
The Koopman operator is beneficial for analyzing nonlinear and stochastic dynamics; it is linear but infinite-dimensional, and it governs the evolution of observables. The extended dynamic mode decomposition (EDMD) is one of the famous methods in the Koopman operator approach. The EDMD employs a data set of snapshot pairs and a specific dictionary to evaluate an approximation for the Koopman operator, i.e., the Koopman matrix. In this study, we focus on stochastic differential equations, and a method to obtain the Koopman matrix is proposed. The proposed method does not need any data set, which employs the original system equations to evaluate some of the targeted elements of the Koopman matrix. The proposed method comprises combinatorics, an approximation of the resolvent, and extrapolations. Comparisons with the EDMD are performed for a noisy van der Pol system. The proposed method yields reasonable results even in cases wherein the EDMD exhibits a slow convergence behavior.
Multigrid is a powerful solver for large-scale linear systems arising from discretized partial differential equations. The convergence theory of multigrid methods for symmetric positive definite problems has been well developed over the past decades, while, for nonsymmetric problems, such theory is still not mature. As a foundation for multigrid analysis, two-grid convergence theory plays an important role in motivating multigrid algorithms. Regarding two-grid methods for nonsymmetric problems, most previous works focus on the spectral radius of iteration matrix or rely on convergence measures that are typically difficult to compute in practice. Moreover, the existing results are confined to two-grid methods with exact solution of the coarse-grid system. In this paper, we analyze the convergence of a two-grid method for nonsymmetric positive definite problems (e.g., linear systems arising from the discretizations of convection-diffusion equations). In the case of exact coarse solver, we establish an elegant identity for characterizing two-grid convergence factor, which is measured by a smoother-induced norm. The identity can be conveniently used to derive a class of optimal restriction operators and analyze how the convergence factor is influenced by restriction. More generally, we present some convergence estimates for an inexact variant of the two-grid method, in which both linear and nonlinear coarse solvers are considered.
Tensor PCA is a stylized statistical inference problem introduced by Montanari and Richard to study the computational difficulty of estimating an unknown parameter from higher-order moment tensors. Unlike its matrix counterpart, Tensor PCA exhibits a statistical-computational gap, i.e., a sample size regime where the problem is information-theoretically solvable but conjectured to be computationally hard. This paper derives computational lower bounds on the run-time of memory bounded algorithms for Tensor PCA using communication complexity. These lower bounds specify a trade-off among the number of passes through the data sample, the sample size, and the memory required by any algorithm that successfully solves Tensor PCA. While the lower bounds do not rule out polynomial-time algorithms, they do imply that many commonly-used algorithms, such as gradient descent and power method, must have a higher iteration count when the sample size is not large enough. Similar lower bounds are obtained for Non-Gaussian Component Analysis, a family of statistical estimation problems in which low-order moment tensors carry no information about the unknown parameter. Finally, stronger lower bounds are obtained for an asymmetric variant of Tensor PCA and related statistical estimation problems. These results explain why many estimators for these problems use a memory state that is significantly larger than the effective dimensionality of the parameter of interest.
A new numerical method for mean field games (MFGs) is proposed. The target MFGs are derived from optimal control problems for multidimensional systems with advection terms, which are difficult to solve numerically with existing methods. For such MFGs, linearization using the Cole-Hopf transformation and iterative computation using fictitious play are introduced. This leads to an implementation-friendly algorithm that iteratively solves explicit schemes. The convergence properties of the proposed scheme are mathematically proved by tracking the error of the variable through iterations. Numerical calculations show that the proposed method works stably for both one- and two-dimensional control problems.
We propose a First-Order System Least Squares (FOSLS) method based on deep-learning for numerically solving second-order elliptic PDEs. The method we propose is capable of dealing with either variational and non-variational problems, and because of its meshless nature, it can also deal with problems posed in high-dimensional domains. We prove the $\Gamma$-convergence of the neural network approximation towards the solution of the continuous problem, and extend the convergence proof to some well-known related methods. Finally, we present several numerical examples illustrating the performance of our discretization.