EUROPT 2025
Abstract Submission

355. Derivative free optimization with structured random directions

Invited abstract in session MC-1: Strategies to Improve Zeroth-Order Optimization Methods, stream Zeroth and first-order optimization methods.

Monday, 14:00-16:00
Room: B100/1001

Authors (first author is the speaker)

1. Silvia Villa
Department of Mathematics, MaLGa, università di Genova
2. Marco Rando
Malga - DIBRIS, Universita degli Studi di Genova
3. Cheik Traoré
University of Genoa
4. Cesare Molinari
Università di Genova
5. Lorenzo Rosasco
DIBRIS, Universita' di Genova

Abstract

We consider the problem of minimizing an objective function in a black-box setting where only function evaluations are available. Finite-difference methods is a class of algorithms that mimic gradient-based methods by replacing gradients with approximations built using function evaluations along a set of directions. In this talk I will focus on the specific choice of the set of directions where the directions are randomly chosen but satisfy an orthogonality constraint. I will then analyze finite-difference methods which incorporate variance-reduction techniques to minimize a finite sum of functions. I will derive convergence rates for smooth non-convex functions and show that our algorithm achieves a convergence rate that matches
the state-of-the-art. Finally,I will illustrate our method through numerical experiments.

Keywords

Status: accepted


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