Optimization problems with rank constraints arise in many applications, including matrix regression, structured PCA, matrix completion and matrix decomposition problems. An attractive heuristic for solving such problems is to factorize the low-rank matrix, and to run projected gradient descent on the nonconvex factorized optimization problem. The goal of this problem is to provide a general theoretical framework for understanding when such methods work well, and to characterize the nature of the resulting fixed point. We provide a simple set of conditions under which projected gradient descent, when given a suitable initialization, converges geometrically to a statistically useful solution. Our results are applicable even when the initial solution is outside any region of local convexity, and even when the problem is globally concave. Working in a non-asymptotic framework, we show that our conditions are satisfied for a wide range of concrete models, including matrix regression, structured PCA, matrix completion with real and quantized observations, matrix decomposition, and graph clustering problems. Simulation results show excellent agreement with the theoretical predictions.

通过矩阵分解和投影梯度下降算法解决约束最优化问题，提供了一种通用理论框架，当给定适当的初始化时，可以几何级数地收敛到具有统计意义的解，适用于许多具体模型。

投影梯度下降法的快速低秩估计：广义统计和算法保证