Solving PhaseLift by low-rank Riemannian optimization methods for complex semidefinite constraints

A framework, PhaseLift, was recently proposed to solve the phase retrieval problem. In this framework, the problem is solved by optimizing a cost function over the set of complex Hermitian positive semidefinite matrices. This approach to phase retrieval motivates a more general consideration of optimizing cost functions on semidefinite Hermitian matrices where the desired minimizers … Read more

Chebyshev Inequalities for Products of Random Variables

We derive sharp probability bounds on the tails of a product of symmetric non-negative random variables using only information about their first two moments. If the covariance matrix of the random variables is known exactly, these bounds can be computed numerically using semidefinite programming. If only an upper bound on the covariance matrix is available, … Read more

A numerical evaluation of the bounded degree sum-of-squares hierarchy of Lasserre, Toh, and Yang on the pooling problem

The bounded degree sum-of-squares (BSOS) hierarchy of Lasserre, Toh, and Yang [EURO J. Comput. Optim., 2015] constructs lower bounds for a general polynomial optimization problem with compact feasible set, by solving a sequence of semi-definite programming (SDP) problems. Lasserre, Toh, and Yang prove that these lower bounds converge to the optimal value of the original … Read more

A Framework for Solving Mixed-Integer Semidefinite Programs

Mixed-integer semidefinite programs arise in many applications and several problem-specific solution approaches have been studied recently. In this paper, we investigate a generic branch-and-bound framework for solving such problems. We first show that strict duality of the semidefinite relaxations is inherited to the subproblems. Then solver components like dual fixing, branching rules, and primal heuristics … Read more

Computing Restricted Isometry Constants via Mixed-Integer Semidefinite Programming

One of the fundamental tasks in compressed sensing is finding the sparsest solution to an underdetermined system of linear equations. It is well known that although this problem is NP-hard, under certain conditions it can be solved by using a linear program which minimizes the 1-norm. The restricted isometry property has been one of the … Read more

Computational study of valid inequalities for the maximum hBccut problem

We consider the maximum k-cut problem that consists in partitioning the vertex set of a graph into k subsets such that the sum of the weights of edges joining vertices in different subsets is maximized. We focus on identifying effective classes of inequalities to tighten the semidefinite programming relaxation. We carry out an experimental study … Read more

Improved convergence rates for Lasserre-type hierarchies of upper bounds for box-constrained polynomial optimization

We consider the problem of minimizing a given $n$-variate polynomial $f$ over the hypercube $[-1,1]^n$. An idea introduced by Lasserre, is to find a probability distribution on $[-1,1]^n$ with polynomial density function $h$ (of given degree $r$) that minimizes the expectation $\int_{[-1,1]^n} f(x)h(x)d\mu(x)$, where $d\mu(x)$ is a fixed, finite Borel measure supported on $[-1,1]^n$. It … Read more

A coordinate ascent method for solving semidefinite relaxations of non-convex quadratic integer programs

We present a coordinate ascent method for a class of semidefinite programming problems that arise in non-convex quadratic integer optimization. These semidefinite programs are characterized by a small total number of active constraints and by low-rank constraint matrices. We exploit this special structure by solving the dual problem, using a barrier method in combination with … Read more

Exact Solution Methods for the hBcitem Quadratic Knapsack Problem

The purpose of this paper is to solve the 0-1 k-item quadratic knapsack problem (kQKP), a problem of maximizing a quadratic function subject to two linear constraints.We propose an exact method based on semide nite optimization. The semide nite relaxation used in our approach includes simple rank one constraints, which can be handled efficiently by interior point … Read more

Solving rank-constrained semidefinite programs in exact arithmetic

We consider the problem of minimizing a linear function over an affine section of the cone of positive semidefinite matrices, with the additional constraint that the feasible matrix has prescribed rank. When the rank constraint is active, this is a non-convex optimization problem, otherwise it is a semidefinite program. Both find numerous applications especially in … Read more