Provable non-accelerations of the heavy-ball method

Fuente: arXiv
Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Hauptverfasser: Goujaud, Baptiste, Taylor, Adrien, Dieuleveut, Aymeric
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2023
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
_version_ 1866914081879883776
author Goujaud, Baptiste
Taylor, Adrien
Dieuleveut, Aymeric
author_facet Goujaud, Baptiste
Taylor, Adrien
Dieuleveut, Aymeric
contents In this work, we show that the heavy-ball ($\HB$) method provably does not reach an accelerated convergence rate on smooth strongly convex problems. More specifically, we show that for any condition number and any choice of algorithmic parameters, either the worst-case convergence rate of $\HB$ on the class of $L$-smooth and $μ$-strongly convex \textit{quadratic} functions is not accelerated (that is, slower than $1 - \mathcal{O}(κ)$), or there exists an $L$-smooth $μ$-strongly convex function and an initialization such that the method does not converge. To the best of our knowledge, this result closes a simple yet open question on one of the most used and iconic first-order optimization technique. Our approach builds on finding functions for which $\HB$ fails to converge and instead cycles over finitely many iterates. We analytically describe all parametrizations of $\HB$ that exhibit this cycling behavior on a particular cycle shape, whose choice is supported by a systematic and constructive approach to the study of cycling behaviors of first-order methods. We show the robustness of our results to perturbations of the cycle, and extend them to class of functions that also satisfy higher-order regularity conditions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2307_11291
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Provable non-accelerations of the heavy-ball method
Goujaud, Baptiste
Taylor, Adrien
Dieuleveut, Aymeric
Optimization and Control
In this work, we show that the heavy-ball ($\HB$) method provably does not reach an accelerated convergence rate on smooth strongly convex problems. More specifically, we show that for any condition number and any choice of algorithmic parameters, either the worst-case convergence rate of $\HB$ on the class of $L$-smooth and $μ$-strongly convex \textit{quadratic} functions is not accelerated (that is, slower than $1 - \mathcal{O}(κ)$), or there exists an $L$-smooth $μ$-strongly convex function and an initialization such that the method does not converge. To the best of our knowledge, this result closes a simple yet open question on one of the most used and iconic first-order optimization technique. Our approach builds on finding functions for which $\HB$ fails to converge and instead cycles over finitely many iterates. We analytically describe all parametrizations of $\HB$ that exhibit this cycling behavior on a particular cycle shape, whose choice is supported by a systematic and constructive approach to the study of cycling behaviors of first-order methods. We show the robustness of our results to perturbations of the cycle, and extend them to class of functions that also satisfy higher-order regularity conditions.
title Provable non-accelerations of the heavy-ball method
topic Optimization and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.11291