为固定步长的随机逼近提供非渐近高斯近似误差界,可直接用于分析收敛态。
Steady-State Behavior of Constant-Stepsize Stochastic Approximation: Gaussian Approximation and Tail Bounds
- 基于Wasserstein距离,给出固定步长下稳态与高斯分布的显式误差界。
- 在小步长下,误差阶为α^{1/2}log(1/α),适用于SGD、线性及非线性情形。
- 揭示非强凸目标下稳态趋于吉布斯分布,拓展了高斯近似的适用范围。
固定步长的随机逼近(SA)因计算高效而广泛应用。对于固定步长α,迭代序列通常具有难以解析的稳态分布。已有研究表明,当步长α↓0时,中心化并缩放后的稳态弱收敛于高斯向量。然而,对固定α,该弱收敛无法提供可用于近似的有效误差界。本文首次为固定α提供了显式的非渐近误差界。我们建立了在漂移项正则性和噪声矩条件下,中心化缩放稳态与适当高斯分布之间Wasserstein距离的通用定理,涵盖独立同分布与马尔可夫噪声模型。随后,我们将定理应用于三种典型场景:(1) 平滑强凸目标的随机梯度下降(SGD),(2) 线性SA,(3) 收缩型非线性SA,均获得依赖维度和步长的显式界,其阶为α^{1/2}log(1/α)。在此基础上,进一步推导出非均匀的Berry--Esseen型尾部界,比较稳态尾概率与高斯尾的概率,误差项同时随偏离程度与步长α衰减。针对非强凸目标的SGD,我们识别出正确缩放下稳态趋于非高斯(吉布斯)极限律,并通过数值实验验证,同时给出对应的预极限Wasserstein误差界。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Constant-stepsize stochastic approximation (SA) is widely used in learning for computational efficiency. For a fixed stepsize, the iterates typically admit a stationary distribution that is rarely tractable. Prior work shows that as the stepsize $α\downarrow 0$, the centered-and-scaled steady state converges weakly to a Gaussian random vector. However, for fixed $α$, this weak convergence offers no usable error bound for approximating the steady-state by its Gaussian limit. This paper provides explicit, non-asymptotic error bounds for fixed $α$. We first prove general-purpose theorems that bound the Wasserstein distance between the centered-scaled steady state and an appropriate Gaussian distribution, under regularity conditions for drift and moment conditions for noise. To ensure broad applicability, we cover both i.i.d. and Markovian noise models. We then instantiate these theorems for three representative SA settings: (1) stochastic gradient descent (SGD) for smooth strongly convex objectives, (2) linear SA, and (3) contractive nonlinear SA. We obtain dimension- and stepsize-dependent, explicit bounds in Wasserstein distance of order $α^{1/2}\log(1/α)$ for small $α$. Building on the Wasserstein approximation error, we further derive non-uniform Berry--Esseen-type tail bounds that compare the steady-state tail probability to Gaussian tails. We achieve an explicit error term that decays in both the deviation level and stepsize $α$. We adapt the same analysis for SGD beyond strongly convexity and study general convex objectives. We identify a non-Gaussian (Gibbs) limiting law under the correct scaling, which is validated numerically, and provide a corresponding pre-limit Wasserstein error bound.
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