Optimal Scaling for the Proximal Langevin Algorithm in High Dimensions

Fuente: arXiv
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Autore principale: Pillai, Natesh S.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2022
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author Pillai, Natesh S.
author_facet Pillai, Natesh S.
contents The Metropolis-adjusted Langevin (MALA) algorithm is a sampling algorithm that incorporates the gradient of the logarithm of the target density in its proposal distribution. In an earlier joint work \citet{pill:stu:12}, the author had extended the seminal work of \cite{Robe:Rose:98} and showed that in stationarity, MALA applied to an $N-$dimensional approximation of the target will take ${\cal O}(N^{\frac13})$ steps to explore its target measure. It was also shown that the MALA algorithm is optimized at an average acceptance probability of $0.574$. In \citet{pere:16}, the author introduced the proximal MALA algorithm where the gradient of the log target density is replaced by the proximal function. In this paper, we show that for a wide class of twice differentiable target densities, the proximal MALA enjoys the same optimal scaling as that of MALA in high dimensions and also has an average optimal acceptance probability of $0.574$. The results of this paper thus give the following practically useful guideline: for smooth target densities where it is expensive to compute the gradient while implementing MALA, users may replace the gradient with the corresponding proximal function (that can be often computed relatively cheaply via convex optimization) \emph{without} losing any efficiency gains from optimal scaling. This confirms some of the empirical observations made in \cite{pere:16}.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2204_10793
institution arXiv
publishDate 2022
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Optimal Scaling for the Proximal Langevin Algorithm in High Dimensions
Pillai, Natesh S.
Computation
Probability
Methodology
Machine Learning
The Metropolis-adjusted Langevin (MALA) algorithm is a sampling algorithm that incorporates the gradient of the logarithm of the target density in its proposal distribution. In an earlier joint work \citet{pill:stu:12}, the author had extended the seminal work of \cite{Robe:Rose:98} and showed that in stationarity, MALA applied to an $N-$dimensional approximation of the target will take ${\cal O}(N^{\frac13})$ steps to explore its target measure. It was also shown that the MALA algorithm is optimized at an average acceptance probability of $0.574$. In \citet{pere:16}, the author introduced the proximal MALA algorithm where the gradient of the log target density is replaced by the proximal function. In this paper, we show that for a wide class of twice differentiable target densities, the proximal MALA enjoys the same optimal scaling as that of MALA in high dimensions and also has an average optimal acceptance probability of $0.574$. The results of this paper thus give the following practically useful guideline: for smooth target densities where it is expensive to compute the gradient while implementing MALA, users may replace the gradient with the corresponding proximal function (that can be often computed relatively cheaply via convex optimization) \emph{without} losing any efficiency gains from optimal scaling. This confirms some of the empirical observations made in \cite{pere:16}.
title Optimal Scaling for the Proximal Langevin Algorithm in High Dimensions
topic Computation
Probability
Methodology
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.10793