Reconstruction of Support of a Measure From Its Moments

2012

There are a wide variety of mathematical problems in different areas which are classified under the title of Moment Problem. We are interested in the moment problem with polynomial data and its relation to real algebra and real algebraic geometry. In this direction, we consider two different variants of moment problem.

Association for Women in Mathematics Series, 2019

The generalized problem of moments is a conic linear optimization problem over the convex cone of positive Borel measures with given support. It has a large variety of applications, including global optimization of polynomials and rational functions, options pricing in finance, constructing quadrature schemes for numerical integration, and distributionally robust optimization. A usual solution approach, due to J.B. Lasserre, is to approximate the convex cone of positive Borel measures by finite dimensional outer and inner conic approximations. We will review some results on these approximations, with a special focus on the convergence rate of the hierarchies of upper and lower bounds for the general problem of moments that are obtained from these inner and outer approximations.

Mathematical Programming, 2007

We consider the generalized problem of moments (GPM) from a computational point of view and provide a hierarchy of semidefinite programming relaxations whose sequence of optimal values converges to the optimal value of the GPM. We then investigate in detail various examples of applications in optimization, probability, financial economics and optimal control, which all can be viewed as particular instances of the GPM.

Mathematical Programming, 2016

We consider the problem of minimizing a continuous function f over a compact set K. We analyze a hierarchy of upper bounds proposed by Lasserre in [SIAM J. Optim. 21(3) (2011), pp. 864 − 885], obtained by searching for an optimal probability density function h on K which is a sum of squares of polynomials, so that the expectation K f (x)h(x)dx is minimized. We show that the rate of convergence is O(1/ √ r), where 2r is the degree bound on the density function. This analysis applies to the case when f is Lipschitz continuous and K is a full-dimensional compact set satisfying some boundary condition (which is satisfied, e.g., for polytopes and the Euclidean ball). The rth upper bound in the hierarchy may be computed using semidefinite programming if f is a polynomial of degree d, and if all moments of order up to 2r + d of the Lebesgue measure on K are known, which holds for example if K is a simplex, hypercube, or a Euclidean ball.

arXiv: Optimization and Control, 2017

We propose convex optimization algorithms to recover a good approximation of a point measure $\mu$ on the unit sphere $S\subseteq \mathbb{R}^n$ from its moments with respect to a set of real-valued functions $f_1,\dots, f_m$. Given a finite subset $C\subseteq S$ the algorithm produces a measure $\mu^*$ supported on $C$ and we prove that $\mu^*$ is a good approximation to $\mu$ whenever the functions $f_1,\dots, f_m$ are a sufficiently large random sample of independent Kostlan-Shub-Smale polynomials. More specifically, we give sufficient conditions for the validity of the equality $\mu=\mu^*$ when $\mu$ is supported on $C$ and prove that $\mu^*$ is close to the best approximation to $\mu$ supported on $C$ provided that all points in the support of $\mu$ are close to $C$.

Journal of Global Optimization, 2009

We briefly review the duality between moment problems and sums of squares (s.o.s.) representations of positive polynomials, and compare s.o.s. versus nonnegative polynomials. We then describe how to use such results to define convergent semidefinite programming relaxations in polynomial optimization as well as for the two related problems of computing the convex envelope of a rational function and finding all zeros of a system of polynomial equations.

Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society, 2011

Given all moments of the marginals of a measure µ on R n , one provides (a) explicit bounds on its support and (b) a numerical scheme to compute the smallest box that contains the support of µ.

1999

Let $G$ be a bounded open subset of Euclidean space with real algebraic boundary $\Gamma$. Under the assumption that the degree $d$ of $\Gamma$ is given, and the power moments of the Lebesgue measure on $G$ are known up to order $3d$, we describe an algorithmic procedure for obtaining a polynomial vanishing on $\Gamma$. The particular case of semi-algebraic sets defined by a single polynomial inequality raises an intriguing question related to the finite determinateness of the full moment sequence. The more general case of a measure with density equal to the exponential of a polynomial is treated in parallel. Our approach relies on Stokes theorem and simple Hankel-type matrix identities.

SIAM Journal on Optimization, 2001

We consider the problem of finding the unconstrained global minimum of a realvalued polynomial p(x) : R n → R, as well as the global minimum of p(x), in a compact set K defined by polynomial inequalities. It is shown that this problem reduces to solving an (often finite) sequence of convex linear matrix inequality (LMI) problems. A notion of Karush-Kuhn-Tucker polynomials is introduced in a global optimality condition. Some illustrative examples are provided.