arXiv subjects

Pierre Del Moral

Publications and source records attributed to Pierre Del Moral.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

A perturbation analysis of stochastic matrix Riccati diffusions

Matrix differential Riccati equations are central in filtering and optimal control theory. The purpose of this article is to develop a perturbation theory for a class of stochastic matrix Riccati diffusions. Diffusions of this type arise, for example, in the analysis of ensemble Kalman-Bucy filters since they describe the flow of certain sample covariance estimates. In this context, the random perturbations come from the fluctuations of a mean field particle interpretation of a class of nonlinear diffusions equipped with an interacting sample covariance matrix functional. The main purpose of this article is to derive non-asymptotic Taylor-type expansions of stochastic matrix Riccati flows with respect to some perturbation parameter. These expansions rely on an original combination of stochastic differential analysis and nonlinear semigroup techniques on matrix spaces. The results here quantify the fluctuation of the stochastic flow around the limiting deterministic Riccati equation, at any order. The convergence of the interacting sample covariance matrices to the deterministic Riccati flow is proven as the number of particles tends to infinity. Also presented are refined moment estimates and sharp bias and variance estimates. These expansions are also used to deduce a functional central limit theorem at the level of the diffusion process in matrix spaces.

math.PR↗

arXiv2019

An explicit Floquet-type representation of Riccati aperiodic exponential semigroups

The article presents a rather surprising Floquet-type representation of time-varying transition matrices associated with a class of nonlinear matrix differential Riccati equations. The main difference with conventional Floquet theory comes from the fact that the underlying flow of the solution matrix is aperiodic. The monodromy matrix associated with this Floquet representation coincides with the exponential (fundamental) matrix associated with the stabilizing fixed point of the Riccati equation. The second part of this article is dedicated to the application of this representation to the stability of matrix differential Riccati equations. We provide refined global and local contraction inequalities for the Riccati exponential semigroup that depend linearly on the spectral norm of the initial condition. These refinements improve upon existing results and are a direct consequence of the Floquet-type representation, yielding what seems to be the first results of this type for this class of models.

math.OC↗

arXiv2019

Stability Properties of Systems of Linear Stochastic Differential Equations with Random Coefficients

This work is concerned with the stability properties of linear stochastic differential equations with random (drift and diffusion) coefficient matrices, and the stability of a corresponding random transition matrix (or exponential semigroup). We consider a class of random matrix drift coefficients that involves random perturbations of an exponentially stable flow of deterministic (time-varying) drift matrices. In contrast with more conventional studies, our analysis is not based on the existence of Lyapunov functions, and it does not rely on any ergodic properties. These approaches are often difficult to apply in practice when the drift/diffusion coefficients are random. We present rather weak and easily checked perturbation-type conditions for the asymptotic stability of time-varying and random linear stochastic differential equations. We provide new log-Lyapunov estimates and exponential contraction inequalities on any time horizon as soon as the fluctuation parameter is sufficiently small. These seem to be the first results of this type for this class of linear stochastic differential equations with random coefficient matrices.

math.PR↗

arXiv2019

An Introduction to Wishart Matrix Moments

These lecture notes provide a comprehensive, self-contained introduction to the analysis of Wishart matrix moments. This study may act as an introduction to some particular aspects of random matrix theory, or as a self-contained exposition of Wishart matrix moments. Random matrix theory plays a central role in statistical physics, computational mathematics and engineering sciences, including data assimilation, signal processing, combinatorial optimization, compressed sensing, econometrics and mathematical finance, among numerous others. The mathematical foundations of the theory of random matrices lies at the intersection of combinatorics, non-commutative algebra, geometry, multivariate functional and spectral analysis, and of course statistics and probability theory. As a result, most of the classical topics in random matrix theory are technical, and mathematically difficult to penetrate for non-experts and regular users and practitioners. The technical aim of these notes is to review and extend some important results in random matrix theory in the specific context of real random Wishart matrices. This special class of Gaussian-type sample covariance matrix plays an important role in multivariate analysis and in statistical theory. We derive non-asymptotic formulae for the full matrix moments of real valued Wishart random matrices. As a corollary, we derive and extend a number of spectral and trace-type results for the case of non-isotropic Wishart random matrices. We also derive the full matrix moment analogues of some classic spectral and trace-type moment results. For example, we derive semi-circle and Marchencko-Pastur-type laws in the non-isotropic and full matrix cases. Laplace matrix transforms and matrix moment estimates are also studied, along with new spectral and trace concentration-type inequalities.

math.PR↗

arXiv2019

A variational approach to nonlinear and interacting diffusions

The article presents a novel variational calculus to analyze the stability and the propagation of chaos properties of nonlinear and interacting diffusions. This differential methodology combines gradient flow estimates with backward stochastic interpolations, Lyapunov linearization techniques as well as spectral theory. This framework applies to a large class of stochastic models including non homogeneous diffusions, as well as stochastic processes evolving on differentiable manifolds, such as constraint-type embedded manifolds on Euclidian spaces and manifolds equipped with some Riemannian metric. We derive uniform as well as almost sure exponential contraction inequalities at the level of the nonlinear diffusion flow, yielding what seems to be the first result of this type for this class of models. Uniform propagation of chaos properties w.r.t. the time parameter are also provided. Illustrations are provided in the context of a class of gradient flow diffusions arising in fluid mechanics and granular media literature. The extended versions of these nonlinear Langevin-type diffusions on Riemannian manifolds are also discussed.

math.PR↗

arXiv2018

Perturbations and projections of Kalman-Bucy semigroups

We analyse various perturbations and projections of Kalman-Bucy semigroups and Riccati equations. For example, covariance inflation-type perturbations and localisation methods (projections) are common in the ensemble Kalman filtering literature. In the limit of these ensemble methods, the regularised sample covariance tends toward a solution of a perturbed/projected Riccati equation. With this motivation, results are given characterising the error between the nominal and regularised Riccati flows and Kalman-Bucy filtering distributions. New projection-type models are also discussed; e.g. Bose-Mesner projections. These regularisation models are also of interest on their own, and in, e.g., differential games, control of stochastic/jump processes, and robust control.

math.PR↗

arXiv2018

On the Stability of Kalman-Bucy Diffusion Processes

The Kalman-Bucy filter is the optimal state estimator for an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck diffusion given that the system is partially observed via a linear diffusion-type (noisy) sensor. Under Gaussian assumptions, it provides a finite-dimensional exact implementation of the optimal Bayes filter. It is generally the only such finite-dimensional exact instance of the Bayes filter for continuous state-space models. Consequently, this filter has been studied extensively in the literature since the seminal 1961 paper of Kalman and Bucy. The purpose of this work is to review, re-prove and refine existing results concerning the dynamical properties of the Kalman-Bucy filter so far as they pertain to filter stability and convergence. The associated differential matrix Riccati equation is a focal point of this study with a number of bounds, convergence, and eigenvalue inequalities rigorously proven. New results are also given in the form of exponential and comparison inequalities for both the filter and the Riccati flow.

math.OC↗

arXiv2018

On One-Dimensional Riccati Diffusions

This article is concerned with the fluctuation analysis and the stability properties of a class of one-dimensional Riccati diffusions. These one-dimensional stochastic differential equations exhibit a quadratic drift function and a non-Lipschitz continuous diffusion function. We present a novel approach, combining tangent process techniques, Feynman-Kac path integration, and exponential change of measures, to derive sharp exponential decays to equilibrium. We also provide uniform estimates with respect to the time horizon, quantifying with some precision the fluctuations of these diffusions around a limiting deterministic Riccati differential equation. These results provide a stronger and almost sure version of the conventional central limit theorem. We illustrate these results in the context of ensemble Kalman-Bucy filtering. To the best of our knowledge, the exponential stability and the fluctuation analysis developed in this work are the first results of this kind for this class of nonlinear diffusions.

math.PR↗

arXiv2018

A Taylor expansion of the square root matrix functional

This short note provides an explicit description of the Fréchet derivatives of the principal square root matrix functional at any order. We present an original formulation that allows to compute sequentially the Fréchet derivatives of the matrix square root at any order starting from the first order derivative. A Taylor expansion at any order with an integral remainder term is also provided, yielding the first result of this type for this class of matrix functional.

math.NA↗

arXiv2017

Unbiased Multi-index Monte Carlo

We introduce a new class of Monte Carlo based approximations of expectations of random variables such that their laws are only available via certain discretizations. Sampling from the discretized versions of these laws can typically introduce a bias. In this paper, we show how to remove that bias, by introducing a new version of multi-index Monte Carlo (MIMC) that has the added advantage of reducing the computational effort, relative to i.i.d. sampling from the most precise discretization, for a given level of error. We cover extensions of results regarding variance and optimality criteria for the new approach. We apply the methodology to the problem of computing an unbiased mollified version of the solution of a partial differential equation with random coefficients. A second application concerns the Bayesian inference (the smoothing problem) of an infinite dimensional signal modelled by the solution of a stochastic partial differential equation that is observed on a discrete space grid and at discrete times. Both applications are complemented by numerical simulations.

stat.CO↗

arXiv2017

Matrix product moments in normal variables

Let ${\cal X }=XX^{\prime}$ be a random matrix associated with a centered $r$-column centered Gaussian vector $X$ with a covariance matrix $P$. In this article we compute expectations of matrix-products of the form $\prod_{1\leq i\leq n}({\cal X } P^{v_i})$ for any $n\geq 1$ and any multi-index parameters $v_i\in\mathbb{N}$. We derive closed form formulae and a simple sequential algorithm to compute these matrices w.r.t. the parameter $n$. The second part of the article is dedicated to a non commutative binomial formula for the central matrix-moments $\mathbb{E}\left(\left[{\cal X }-P\right]^n\right)$. The matrix product moments discussed in this study are expressed in terms of polynomial formulae w.r.t. the powers of the covariance matrix, with coefficients depending on the trace of these matrices. We also derive a series of estimates w.r.t. the Loewner order on quadratic forms. For instance we shall prove the rather crude estimate $\mathbb{E}\left(\left[{\cal X }-P\right]^n\right)\leq \mathbb{E}\left({\cal X }^n-P^n\right)$, for any $n\geq 1$

math.ST↗

arXiv2017

Convergence properties of weighted particle islands with application to the double bootstrap algorithm

Particle island models (Vergé et al., 2013) provide a means of parallelization of sequential Monte Carlo methods, and in this paper we present novel convergence results for algorithms of this sort. In particular we establish a central limit theorem - as the number of islands and the common size of the islands tend jointly to infinity - of the double bootstrap algorithm with possibly adaptive selection on the island level. For this purpose we introduce a notion of archipelagos of weighted islands and find conditions under which a set of convergence properties are preserved by different operations on such archipelagos. This theory allows arbitrary compositions of these operations to be straightforwardly analyzed, providing a very flexible framework covering the double bootstrap algorithm as a special case. Finally, we establish the long-term numerical stability of the double bootstrap algorithm by bounding its asymptotic variance under weak and easily checked assumptions satisfied for a wide range of models with possibly non-compact state space.

stat.CO↗

arXiv2016

A Note on Random Walks with Absorbing barriers and Sequential Monte Carlo Methods

In this article we consider importance sampling (IS) and sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) methods in the context of 1-dimensional random walks with absorbing barriers. In particular, we develop a very precise variance analysis for several IS and SMC procedures. We take advantage of some explicit spectral formulae available for these models to derive sharp and explicit estimates; this provides stability properties of the associated normalized Feynman-Kac semigroups. Our analysis allows one to compare the variance of SMC and IS techniques for these models. The work in this article, is one of the few to consider an in-depth analysis of an SMC method for a particular model-type as well as variance comparison of SMC algorithms.

stat.CO↗

arXiv2016

On the Stability and the Exponential Concentration of Extended Kalman-Bucy filters

The exponential stability and the concentration properties of a class of extended Kalman-Bucy filters are analyzed. New estimation concentration inequalities around partially observed signals are derived in terms of the stability properties of the filters. These non asymptotic exponential inequalities allow to design confidence interval type estimates in terms of the filter forgetting properties with respect to erroneous initial conditions. For uniformly stable signals, we also provide explicit non-asymptotic estimates for the exponential forgetting rate of the filters and the associated stochastic Riccati equations w.r.t. Frobenius norms. These non asymptotic exponential concentration and quantitative stability estimates seem to be the first results of this type for this class of nonlinear filters. Our techniques combine $χ$-square concentration inequalities and Laplace estimates with spectral and random matrices theory, and the non asymptotic stability theory of quadratic type stochastic processes.

math.PR↗

arXiv2016

On the stability and the uniform propagation of chaos of a class of Extended Ensemble Kalman-Bucy filters

This article is concerned with the exponential stability and the uniform propagation of chaos properties of a class of Extended Ensemble Kalman-Bucy filters with respect to the time horizon. This class of nonlinear filters can be interpreted as the conditional expectations of nonlinear McKean Vlasov type diffusions with respect to the observation process. In contrast with more conventional Langevin nonlinear drift type processes, the mean field interaction is encapsulated in the covariance matrix of the diffusion. The main results discussed in the article are quantitative estimates of the exponential stability properties of these nonlinear diffusions. These stability properties are used to derive uniform and non asymptotic estimates of the propagation of chaos properties of Extended Ensemble Kalman filters, including exponential concentration inequalities. To our knowledge these results seem to be the first results of this type for this class of nonlinear ensemble type Kalman-Bucy filters.

math.PR↗

arXiv2016

On the stability and the uniform propagation of chaos properties of Ensemble Kalman-Bucy filters

The Ensemble Kalman filter is a sophisticated and powerful data assimilation method for filtering high dimensional problems arising in fluid mechanics and geophysical sciences. This Monte Carlo method can be interpreted as a mean-field McKean-Vlasov type particle interpretation of the Kalman-Bucy diffusions. In contrast to more conventional particle filters and nonlinear Markov processes these models are designed in terms of a diffusion process with a diffusion matrix that depends on particle covariance matrices. Besides some recent advances on the stability of nonlinear Langevin type diffusions with drift interactions, the long-time behaviour of models with interacting diffusion matrices and conditional distribution interaction functions has never been discussed in the literature. One of the main contributions of the article is to initiate the study of this new class of models The article presents a series of new functional inequalities to quantify the stability of these nonlinear diffusion processes. In the same vein, despite some recent contributions on the convergence of the Ensemble Kalman filter when the number of sample tends to infinity very little is known on stability and the long-time behaviour of these mean-field interacting type particle filters. The second contribution of this article is to provide uniform propagation of chaos properties as well as Lp-mean error estimates w.r.t. to the time horizon. Our regularity condition is also shown to be sufficient and necessary for the uniform convergence of the Ensemble Kalman filter. The stochastic analysis developed in this article is based on an original combination of functional inequalities and Foster-Lyapunov techniques with coupling, martingale techniques, random matrices and spectral analysis theory.

math.PR↗

arXiv2016

Nonasymptotic analysis of adaptive and annealed Feynman-Kac particle models

Sequential and quantum Monte Carlo methods, as well as genetic type search algorithms can be interpreted as a mean field and interacting particle approximations of Feynman-Kac models in distribution spaces. The performance of these population Monte Carlo algorithms is strongly related to the stability properties of nonlinear Feynman-Kac semigroups. In this paper, we analyze these models in terms of Dobrushin ergodic coefficients of the reference Markov transitions and the oscillations of the potential functions. Sufficient conditions for uniform concentration inequalities w.r.t. time are expressed explicitly in terms of these two quantities. We provide an original perturbation analysis that applies to annealed and adaptive Feynman-Kac models, yielding what seems to be the first results of this kind for these types of models. Special attention is devoted to the particular case of Boltzmann-Gibbs measures' sampling. In this context, we design an explicit way of tuning the number of Markov chain Monte Carlo iterations with temperature schedule. We also design an alternative interacting particle method based on an adaptive strategy to define the temperature increments. The theoretical analysis of the performance of this adaptive model is much more involved as both the potential functions and the reference Markov transitions now depend on the random evolution on the particle model. The nonasymptotic analysis of these complex adaptive models is an open research problem. We initiate this study with the concentration analysis of a simplified adaptive models based on reference Markov transitions that coincide with the limiting quantities, as the number of particles tends to infinity.

math.PR↗

arXiv2016

Exponential mixing properties for time inhomogeneous diffusion processes with killing

We consider an elliptic and time-inhomogeneous diffusion process with time-periodic coefficients evolving in a bounded domain of $\mathbb{R}^d$ with a smooth boundary. The process is killed when it hits the boundary of the domain (hard killing) or after an exponential time (soft killing) associated with some bounded rate function. The branching particle interpretation of the non absorbed diffusion again behaves as a set of interacting particles evolving in an absorbing medium. Between absorption times, the particles evolve independently one from each other according to the diffusion semigroup; when a particle is absorbed, another selected particle splits into two offsprings. This article is concerned with the stability properties of these non absorbed processes. Under some classical ellipticity properties on the diffusion process and some mild regularity properties of the hard obstacle boundaries, we prove an uniform exponential strong mixing property of the process conditioned to not be killed. We also provide uniform estimates w.r.t. the time horizon for the interacting particle interpretation of these non-absorbed processes, yielding what seems to be the first result of this type for this class of diffusion processes evolving in soft and hard obstacles, both in homogeneous and non-homogeneous time settings.

math.PR↗