论文标题
通过凸和低级优化解决正交组同步:紧密度和景观分析
Solving Orthogonal Group Synchronization via Convex and Low-Rank Optimization: Tightness and Landscape Analysis
论文作者
论文摘要
组同步旨在从嘈杂的成对测量中恢复组元素。它在社区检测,时钟同步和联合对准问题中发现了许多应用。本文重点介绍了通常用于冷冻EM和计算机视觉中的正交组同步。但是,通常是通过找到最小二乘估计器来检索组元素的NP- hard。在这项工作中,我们首先研究了正交组同步及其紧密度的半决赛编程(SDP)松弛,即SDP估计器完全等于最小二乘估计器。此外,我们通过分析其相应的优化景观来研究Burer-Monteiro分解在解决SDP松弛方面的性能。我们提供确定性的足够条件,以保证:(i)SDP松弛的紧密度; (ii)由Burer-Monteiro方法引起的优化景观是良性的,即,全球最佳距离正是最小二乘估计器,并且没有其他虚假的局部优势。我们的结果提供了一个可靠的理论理由,即为什么Burer-Monteiro方法在解决正交组同步引起的大规模SDP方面非常有效地有效。我们执行数值实验以补充我们的理论分析,从而洞悉未来的研究方向。
Group synchronization aims to recover the group elements from their noisy pairwise measurements. It has found many applications in community detection, clock synchronization, and joint alignment problem. This paper focuses on the orthogonal group synchronization which is often used in cryo-EM and computer vision. However, it is generally NP-hard to retrieve the group elements by finding the least squares estimator. In this work, we first study the semidefinite programming (SDP) relaxation of the orthogonal group synchronization and its tightness, i.e., the SDP estimator is exactly equal to the least squares estimator. Moreover, we investigate the performance of the Burer-Monteiro factorization in solving the SDP relaxation by analyzing its corresponding optimization landscape. We provide deterministic sufficient conditions which guarantee: (i) the tightness of SDP relaxation; (ii) optimization landscape arising from the Burer-Monteiro approach is benign, i.e., the global optimum is exactly the least squares estimator and no other spurious local optima exist. Our result provides a solid theoretical justification of why the Burer-Monteiro approach is remarkably efficient and effective in solving the large-scale SDPs arising from orthogonal group synchronization. We perform numerical experiments to complement our theoretical analysis, which gives insights into future research directions.