arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Victor Magron.
In this paper, we analyze the bit complexity of deciding whether a given polynomial can be represented as a sum of squares of polynomials. We show that the weak membership problem for the sum-of-squares cone lies in $\mathrm{P}$. Furthermore, we give a polynomial-time algorithm which computes, for a given polynomial and positive parameter $\epsilon$, an $\epsilon$-relaxed closest sum-of-squares polynomial.
Determining spectral gaps in the thermodynamic limit is a central challenge in quantum many-body physics. Existing rigorous methods are largely limited to special settings, while variational numerical approaches typically provide estimates rather than certified bounds. Here we introduce a complete family of certified upper bounds on the bulk spectral gap of quantum many-body systems. These upper bounds are obtained by solving a series of semidefinite programs and they become arbitrarily tight at the cost of more computational resources. This shows that the bulk spectral gap is semi-decidable, in contrast to undecidability results for alternative notions of spectral gap based on sequences of finite systems with prescribed boundary conditions. As a proof of principle, we apply our algorithm to the spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ kagome lattice Heisenberg antiferromagnet and obtain, to our knowledge, the first nontrivial certified upper bounds on its bulk spectral gap.
The $k$-local Hamiltonian problem is a central model for quantum many-body systems and Hamiltonian complexity. Semidefinite programming and noncommutative sum-of-squares hierarchies provide systematic certificates for ground-state energies, but existing finite-convergence results give no quantitative guarantee on the accuracy of the low hierarchy levels accessible in computation. We prove explicit finite-level convergence rates for these hierarchies in the Pauli setting. For $k$-local Hamiltonians whose Pauli expansion contains only even-weight terms, we show that both the NPA-type lower-bound hierarchy and the upper-bound hierarchy on the spectral minimum have error at most $C(k)\xi^{n,4}_{d+1}/n$, where $\xi^{n,4}_{d+1}$ is the smallest root of a Krawtchouk polynomial and $C(k)$ is independent of the number of qubits $n$ and the hierarchy level $d$. General $k$-local Hamiltonians reduce to this even-weight case by adding one ancilla qubit while preserving the spectrum. The proof constructs almost-reproducing kernels for the Pauli algebra and relates their spectra to Krawtchouk polynomials, giving a noncommutative analogue of recent kernel-based convergence analyses for commutative polynomial optimization. These results provide the first quantitative finite-level accuracy guarantees for noncommutative semidefinite relaxations of Pauli Hamiltonians.
The generalized moment problem (GMP) is an infinite dimensional linear problem over the cone of finite nonnegative Borel measures. When a GMP instance involves finitely many polynomial moment constraints, moment/sum-of-squares hierarchies provide a sequence of bounds converging to the optimal value. We consider GMP instances with measures supported over a compact basic semialgebraic set $X$. We study the case when $X$ has nonempty interior, and the case when $X$ is the vanishing set of prescribed polynomials forming a Gr\"obner basis of the ideal they generate, which we assume is real radical. Under a relative interior assumption, we show attainment of the infinite dimensional dual problem, and attainment of each associated finite dimensional sum-of-squares strengthening. For the latter we present two disjoint proofs. The first is obtained by adapting results regarding the closedness of quadratic modules, and the second builds on Csisz\'ar's work on exponential density constructions to find a strictly feasible measure. Finally, we discuss the special case where $X$ is the product of spheres, and applications of our results to GMP instances arising from tensor optimization and quantum information theory.
The CHSH mod 3 Bell inequality is a natural testbed for higher-dimensional quantum nonlocality, yet its maximal quantum violation and self-testing properties have remained unresolved. We determine its exact maximal quantum value and show that, up to unitary equivalence and the natural symmetries of the inequality, it admits a unique optimal irreducible strategy; equivalently, there are four symmetry-related optimal irreducible strategies. Each of these strategies uses a maximally entangled two-qutrit state. We further prove that any strategy whose value is within $\varepsilon$ of the optimum is $O(\sqrt{\varepsilon})$-close, up to local isometries, to a direct sum of optimal irreducible strategies.
A fundamental challenge in quantum physics is determining the ground-state properties of many-body systems. Whereas standard variational approaches posit a wave-function ansatz and minimize over the possible states expressible by that ansatz, the problem can alternatively be formulated as a noncommutative polynomial optimization problem and treated through a hierarchy of semidefinite programming relaxations. In contrast to variational calculations, these relaxations provide lower bounds on ground-state energies and both lower and upper bounds on observable expectation values. However, this approach typically suffers from severe scalability issues, limiting its applicability to small-to-medium-scale systems. In this article, we demonstrate that systematically leveraging the inherent structures of the system can substantially mitigate these scalability challenges and thus permits computing meaningful bounds for quantum spin systems on square lattices of size up to $16\times16$.
We study sum-of-squares (SOS) certificates for nonnegative polynomials $p$ on $\mathbb{R}^d$ and their implications for polynomial optimization over unbounded domains. Building on Lasserre's perturbation approach, we consider SOS representations of $p$ augmented by weighted polynomial tails of the form $\sum_{n=0}^N (x\cdot x)^n/(n!)^t$ for $0 < t < 1$. Our main result provides an explicit quantitative bound on the truncation order $N$ required to achieve an $\varepsilon$-accurate certificate. Using positivity properties of the Mehler kernel and techniques inspired by polynomial kernel methods, we show that $N$ grows polynomially in $1/\varepsilon$, with rate $N = O((\|p\|/\varepsilon)^{1/(1-t)})$.
Building on the matrix cube problem, inclusions of free spectrahedra have been used successfully to obtain relaxations of hard spectrahedral inclusion problems. The quality of such a relaxation is quantified by the inclusion constant associated with each free spectrahedron. While optimal values of inclusion constants were known in certain highly symmetric cases, no general method for computing them was available. In this work, we show that inclusion constants for Cartesian products of free simplices can be computed using methods from non-commutative polynomial optimization, together with a detailed analysis of the extreme points of the associated free spectrahedra. This analysis also yields new closed-form analytic expressions for these constants. As an application to quantum information theory, we prove new bounds on the amount of white noise that incompatible measurements can tolerate before they become compatible. In particular, we study the case of one dichotomic and one $k$-outcome measurement, as well as the case of four dichotomic qubit measurements.
Semidefinite relaxations of polynomial optimization have become a central tool for addressing the non-convex optimization problems over non-commutative operators that are ubiquitous in quantum information theory and, more in general, quantum physics. Yet, as these global relaxation methods rely on floating-point methods, the bounds issued by the semidefinite solver can - and often do - exceed the global optimum, undermining their certifiability. To counter this issue, we introduce a rigorous framework for extracting exact rational bounds on non-commutative optimization problems from numerical data, and apply it to several paradigmatic problems in quantum information theory. An extension to sparsity and symmetry-adapted semidefinite relaxations is also provided and compared to the general dense scheme. Our results establish rational post-processing as a practical route to reliable certification, pushing semidefinite optimization toward a certifiable standard for quantum information science.
We study the polynomial optimization problem of minimizing a multihomogeneous polynomial over the product of spheres. This polynomial optimization problem models the tensor optimization problem of finding the best rank one approximation of an arbitrary tensor. We show that the moment-SOS hierarchy has finite convergence in this case, for a generic multihomogeneous objective function. To show finite convergence of the hierarchy, we use a result of Huang et al. [SIAM J. Optim. 34(4) (2024), pp 3399-3428], which relies on local optimality conditions. To prove that the local optimality conditions hold generically, we use techniques from differential geometry and Morse theory. This work generalizes the main result of Huang [Optim. Lett. 17(5) (2023), pp 1263-1270], which shows finite convergence for the case of a homogeneous polynomial over a single sphere.
Polynomial optimization problems are infinite-dimensional, nonconvex, NP-hard, and are often handled in practice with the moment-sums of squares hierarchy of semidefinite programming bounds. We consider problems where the objective function and constraint polynomials are invariant under the action of a finite group. The present paper simultaneously exploits group symmetry and term sparsity in order to reduce the computational cost of the hierarchy. We first exploit symmetry by writing the semidefinite matrices in a symmetry-adapted basis according to an isotypic decomposition. The matrices in such a basis are block diagonal. Secondly, we exploit term sparsity on each block to further reduce the optimization matrix variables. This is a non-trivial extension of the term sparsity-based hierarchy related to sign symmetry that was introduced by two of the authors. Our method is compared with existing techniques via benchmarks on quartics with dihedral, cyclic and symmetric group symmetry.
Mixture models, such as Gaussian mixture models, are widely used in machine learning to represent complex data distributions. A key challenge, especially in high-dimensional settings, is to determine the mixture order and estimate the mixture parameters. We study the problem of approximating a target measure, available only through finitely many of its moments, by a mixture of distributions from a parametric family (e.g., Gaussian, exponential, Poisson), with approximation quality measured by the 2-Wasserstein or the total variation distance. Unlike many existing approaches, the parameter set is not assumed to be finite; it is modeled as a compact basic semi-algebraic set. We introduce a hierarchy of semidefinite relaxations with asymptotic convergence to the desired optimal value. In addition, when a certain rank condition is satisfied, the convergence is even finite and recovery of an optimal mixing measure is obtained. We also present an application to clustering, where our framework serves either as a stand-alone method or as a preprocessing step that yields both the number of clusters and strong initial parameter estimates, thereby accelerating convergence of standard (local) clustering algorithms.
The Arrow Decomposition (AD) technique, initially introduced in [Mathematical Programming 190(1-2) (2021), pp 105-134], demonstrated superior scalability over the classical chordal decomposition in the context of Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs) if the matrix in question satisfied suitable assumptions. The primary objective of this paper is to extend the AD method to address Polynomial Optimization Problems (POPs) involving large-scale Polynomial Matrix Inequalities (PMIs), with the solution framework relying on moment-sum of square (mSOS) hierarchies. As a first step, we revisit the LMI case and weaken the conditions necessary for the key AD theorem presented in [Mathematical Programming 190(1-2) (2021), pp 105-134]. This modification allows the method to be applied to a broader range of problems. Next, we propose a practical procedure that reduces the number of additional variables, drawing on physical interpretations often found in structural optimization applications. For the PMI case, we explore two distinct approaches to combine the AD technique with mSOS hierarchies. One approach involves applying AD to the original POP before implementing the mSOS relaxation. The other approach applies AD directly to the mSOS relaxations of the POP. We establish convergence guarantees for both approaches and prove that theoretical properties extend to the polynomial case. Finally, we illustrate the significant computational advantages offered by the application of AD, particularly in the context of structural optimization problems.
Optimal transport theory has recently been extended to quantum settings, where the density matrices generalize the probability measures. In this paper, we study the computational aspects of the order 2 quantum Wasserstein distance, formulating it as an infinite dimensional linear program in the space of positive Borel measures supported on products of two unit spheres. This formulation is recognized as an instance of the Generalized Moment Problem, which enables us to use the moment-sums of squares hierarchy to provide a sequence of lower bounds converging to the distance. We illustrate our approach with numerical experiments.
We consider polynomial optimization problems on Cartesian products of basic compact semialgebraic sets. The solution of such problems can be approximated as closely as desired by hierarchies of semidefinite programming relaxations, based on classical sums of squares certificates due to Putinar and Schm\"udgen. When the feasible set is the bi-sphere, i.e., the Cartesian product of two unit spheres, we show that the hierarchies based on the Schm\"udgen-type certificates converge to the global minimum of the objective polynomial at a rate in $O(1/t^2)$, where $t$ is the relaxation order. Our proof is based on the polynomial kernel method. We extend this result to arbitrary sphere products and give a general recipe to obtain convergence rates for polynomial optimization over products of distinct sets. Eventually, we rely on our results for the bi-sphere to analyze the speed of convergence of a semidefinite programming hierarchy approximating the order $2$ quantum Wasserstein distance.
This paper is concerned with the absolute stability analysis of discrete-time feedback systems with slope-restricted nonlinearities. By employing static O'Shea-Zames-Falb multipliers in the framework of integral quadratic constraints, we can obtain a certificate for the absolute stability in the form of a linear matrix inequality (LMI). However, since this LMI certificate is only a sufficient condition, we cannot draw any definite conclusion if the LMI turns out to be infeasible. To address this issue, we focus on the dual LMI that is feasible if and only if the original (primal) LMI is infeasible. As the main result, if the dual solution satisfies a certain rank condition, we prove that we can detect a destabilizing nonlinearity within the assumed class of slope-restricted nonlinearities as well as a non-zero equilibrium point of the resulting feedback system, thereby we can conclude that the system of interest is never absolutely stable. The effectiveness of the technical results is demonstrated through numerical examples.
The classical Moment-Sum Of Squares hierarchy allows to approximate a global minimum of a polynomial optimization problem through semidefinite relaxations of increasing size. However, for many optimization instances, solving higher order relaxations becomes impractical or even impossible due to the substantial computational demands they impose. To address this, existing methods often exploit intrinsic problem properties, such as symmetries or sparsity. Here, we present a complementary approach, which enhances the accuracy of computationally more efficient low-order relaxations by leveraging Christoffel-Darboux kernels. Such strengthened relaxations often yield significantly improved bounds or even facilitate minimizer extraction. We illustrate the efficiency of our approach on several classes of important quadratically constrained quadratic Programs.
This manuscript explores novel complexity results for the feasibility problem over $p$-order cones, extending the foundational work of Porkolab and Khachiyan. By leveraging the intrinsic structure of $p$-order cones, we derive refined complexity bounds that surpass those obtained via standard semidefinite programming reformulations. Our analysis not only improves theoretical bounds but also provides practical insights into the computational efficiency of solving such problems. In addition to establishing complexity results, we derive explicit bounds for solutions when the feasibility problem admits one. For infeasible instances, we analyze their discrepancy quantifying the degree of infeasibility. Finally, we examine specific cases of interest, highlighting scenarios where the geometry of $p$-order cones or problem structure yields further computational simplifications. These findings contribute to both the theoretical understanding and practical tractability of optimization problems involving $p$-order cones.