Convergence of Generalized Bregman Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers for Nonconvex Objective with Linear Constraints ()
1. Introduction
In this paper, what we consider is the two-block separable optimization problem model with linear constraints:
(1.1)
where
is a proper lower semicontinuous function,
is a continuously differentiable function,
is a matrix, and
is a vector. Many valuable optimization problems can be formulated in the form of (1.2), making it applicable across a wide range of fields, such as image and signal processing [1]-[4], statistical learning [5], and compressed sensing [6] [7].
Among the many methods to solve this kind of problem (1.1), the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) is one of the most classic methods. The iterative scheme of the ADMM is as follows:
(1.2)
Here,
denotes the augmented Lagrangian function for (1.1):
where
is the Lagrangian multiplier associated with the linear constraint, and
is the penalty parameter. ADMM has been known since the mid-1970s when it was introduced by Gabay, Mercier, Glowinski, and Marrocco [8] [9]. When both
and
are convex functions, ADMM has produced a number of well-understood results for both convergence and rate of convergence in problem (1.1) [10]-[15]. However, when the objective function contains a nonconvex part, many subsequent studies have focused on variants of ADMM, often adding conditions to prove the corresponding convergence. For instance, Li and Pong [16] proposed a proximal ADMM, and in their convergence analysis, they required the constraint to be
. Subsequently, Hong, Luo, and Razaviyayn [17] proved the convergence of ADMM for solving consensus and sharing problems by assuming that the penalty parameter in the augmented Lagrangian is chosen to be sufficiently large (in 2016). In 2017, Guo et al. [18] further improved on these results, demonstrating that under more concise conditions than those in [16] [17], provided that the augmented Lagrangian function satisfies the Kurdyka-Lojasiewicz inequality.
Reference [19] indicates that ADMM (1.2) is actually the dual of the well-known Douglas-Rachford splitting method (DRSM) [20] applied to problem (1.1). In the literature [21], DRSM is further interpreted as a special case of the proximity point algorithm (PPA). Additionally, literature [21] uses the acceleration form of PPA to accelerate the original ADMM (1.2). With this acceleration technique, Guo et al. proposed a Generalized Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (GADMM) in 2018 to accelerate the original ADMM for both separable and inseparable problems [22]. The iteration format for one of them is as follows:
(1.3)
Obviously, the GADMM (1.3) reduces to the classic ADMM (1.2) when
, and it reduces to the classic GADMM [21] when
. We can prove the acceleration performance of the GADMM [21] through references [23]-[25]. Nevertheless, investigations into the application of ADMM within the realm of nonconvex optimization frequently hinge on the premise that the gradient of the differentiable function adheres to global Lipschitz continuity. However, this condition is not universally satisfied in pivotal problem formulations across domains such as Poisson inverse problems [26], quadratic inverse problems [27], and rank minimization [28] [29]. Consequently, this stringent assumption unduly constrains the versatility of ADMM in these critical areas.
In 2016, Bauschke, Bolte, and Teboulle [26] introduced the Lipschitz-like convexity condition as a relaxation of the global Lipschitz continuous gradient assumption in optimization problems. In 2018, Bolte, Sabach, and Teboulle [27] further introduced the
-smooth adaptivity condition as a supplement to the Lipschitz-like convexity condition. These conditions allowed ADMM to be extended to problems where the gradient of the differentiable function does not satisfy global Lipschitz continuity. Recently, Guo and Tan [30] proposed a “real” Bregman ADMM based on these weakened conditions, which can reduce to the classical ADMM and override its results [18]. The iterative format for Guo and Tan’s Bregman ADMM is as follows:
(1.4)
where
denotes the Bregman augmented Lagrangian function for (1.1):
(1.5)
When
, the Bregman ADMM (1.4) reduces to the classical ADMM (1.2).
Combining the aforementioned content, we aim to integrate the acceleration technique from the Proximal Point Algorithm (PPA) while relaxing the requirement of gradient Lipschitz continuity for differentiable functions in ADMM. To this end, we propose a generalized Bregman ADMM, whose iterative format is as follows:
(1.6)
Here, the parameter
is the relaxation factor. The generalized Bregman ADMM (1.6) elegantly transitions to the generalized ADMM (1.3) by setting
, and to the Bregman ADMM (1.4) by setting
.
Remark 1.1 It is worth noting that, since we have only weakened the conditions on the function
, the iterative format for the variable
remains unchanged (consistent with the classical method). Only the Bregman distance
has been introduced in the iterative format for the variable
.
We know that a very important technique for proving the convergence of nonconvex optimization problems depends on assuming that the objective function satisfies the Kurdyka-Lojasiewicz (KL) inequality. This assumption is also used in many previous articles [16] [18] [30]. Therefore, we also assume that the function satisfies the KL inequality. It is further proved that when the augmented Lagrangian function is a KL function, the sequence generated by the generalized Bregman ADMM converges to a KKT point of the problem (1.1). Ultimately, we analyze the convergence rate of the proposed algorithm under the specified parameter configurations. The structure of the remainder of this paper is outlined as follows. In Section 2, we establish the necessary theoretical foundations for our subsequent analysis. In Section 3, we conduct a detailed convergence analysis of the generalized Bregman Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) and determine its convergence rate. Lastly, in Section 4, we encapsulate our key findings and present our conclusions.
2. Preliminaries
In this section, we review some definitions and fundamental results that will be utilized in our subsequent analysis.
Definition 2.1 [31] For an extended real-valued function
, the effective domain, or simply the domain, is the set
Definition 2.2 [31] A function
is called proper if there exists at least one
such that
.
Definition 2.3 [31] A function
is called lower semicontinuous at
if
for any sequence
such that
as
. Moreover,
is called lower semicontinuous if it is lower semicontinuous at each point in
.
Definition 2.4 ([27], kernel generating distance) Let
be a nonempty, convex, and open subset of
. A function
associated with
is called a kernel generating distance if it satisfies the following conditions:
i)
is proper, lower semicontinuous, and convex, with
and
.
ii)
is
on
.
We denote the class of kernel generating distances by
.
Definition 2.5 ([32]) Let
. The Bregman distance
is defined by
(2.1)
Since
is convex,
, and
if and only if
.
Lemma 2.1 ([33]) Let
. For any
and
, the following properties hold:
i)
.
ii) The three-point identity holds:
Definition 2.6 ([27], L-smooth adaptable) Let
and
be continuously differentiable on
. A pair
is called L-smooth adaptable on
if there exists
such that
and
are convex on
.
Remark 2.1 Definition 2.6 naturally complements and extends the definition of “A Lipschitz-like/Convexity Condition” in [26], which allows us to obtain the following two-sided descent lemma.
Lemma 2.2 ([27], extended descent lemma) The pair of functions
is L-smooth adaptable on
if and only if
(2.2)
Remark 2.2 In particular, when the set
and
, (2.2) reduces to the classical descent lemma for the function
, i.e.,
Definition 2.7 ([26]) Let
be a proper and lower semicontinuous function. The gradient of
is D-Lipschitz if there exists
satisfying
Remark 2.3 According to the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, we have
which, combined with Definition 2.7, yields
Using the conclusion in Lemma 2.1, the above inequality is equivalent to
Thus,
(2.3)
According to inequality (2.3), the functions
and
are convex functions since their gradients are monotone on the set
. Therefore, the D-Lipschitz continuity property of the gradient of the function
is a sufficient condition for the function pair
to be L-smooth adaptable. In this paper, given the complexity of the iterative scheme of ADMM, we need to assume that the gradient of
is D-Lipschitz continuous.
Remark 2.4 Indeed, the
-Lipschitz continuity property is a sort of Lipschitz-like gradient property of the function
with respect to the Bregman distance, which reduces to gradient Lipschitz continuity of function
when
.
Definition 2.8 [18] Let
be a proper lower semicontinuous function.
i) The Fréchet subdifferential, or regular subdifferential, of
at
, written
, is the set of vectors
that satisfy
When
, we set
.
ii) The limiting-subdifferential, or simply the subdifferential, of
at
, written
, is defined as follows:
Remark 2.5 From the above definition, we note that
i) It implies that
for each
, where the first set is closed convex while the second one is only closed.
ii) Let
be a sequence that converges to
. By the definition of
, if
converges to
as
, then
, where
.
iii) A necessary condition for
to be a minimizer of
is
(2.4)
iv) If
is a proper lower semicontinuous and
is continuous differentiable, then
for any
.
A point satisfying (2.4) is called a critical point or a stationary point. The critical points set of
is denoted by
.
Now, we recall an important property of subdifferential calculus.
Lemma 2.3 [34] Suppose that
, where
and
are proper lower semicontinuous functions. Then for all
, we have
Definition 2.9 ([34], Kurdyka-Lojasiewicz inequality) Let
be a proper lower semicontinuous function. For
, set
We say that function
has the KL property at
if there exist
, a neighbourhood
of
, and a continuous concave function
, such that
i)
;
ii)
is
on
and continuous at 0;
iii)
;
iv) for all
in
, the Kurdyka-Lojasiewicz inequality holds
where
, is the distance from
to
.
Remark 2.6 Denote
be the set of all continuous functions
which satisfy (i) - (iii).
Definition 2.10 ([35], Kurdyka-Lojasiewicz function) If
satisfies the KL property at each point of
, then
is called a KL function.
Lemma 2.4 ([36], Uniformized KL property) Let
be a compact set and
be a proper and lower semicontinuous function. Assume that
is constant on
and satisfies the KL property at each point of
. Then, there exist
, and
such that for all
and for all
in the following intersection:
one has
Definition 2.11 We say that
is a critical point of the Augmented Lagrangian Function with Bregman distance
(3.3) if it satisfies
3. Convergence Analysis
To ensure that the Generalized Bregman ADMM (1.6) is well-defined and generates an infinite iterative sequence
, we assume that the two minimization subproblems in (1.6) have solutions throughout the analysis. The optimality conditions for (1.6) are:
(3.1)
In terms of rearrangement of (3.1), it is equivalent to the following relation:
To analyze the Generalized Bregman ADMM (1.6), we make the following basic assumptions. Assumption A. Assuming that
is a proper lower semicontinuous function,
is a continuously differentiable function with
being
-Lipschitz continuous and
is a twice differentiable function function on
, 1-strong-convex, and
is Lipschitz continuous with
on any bounded subset of
. Assume the following conditions hold:
i) if
, then
which implies
ii) if
, then
which implies
iii)
for some
.
The Bregman augmented Lagrangian function of problem (1.1) is defined by
(3.3)
Here,
is the Lagrangian multiplier associated with the linear constraints, and
is the penalty parameter. Moreover, we set
(3.4)
Now, we begin our analysis with the following technical lemma.
Lemma 3.1 Let
be the sequence generated by the Generalized Bregman ADMM (1.6), which is assumed to be bounded. Then we have
(3.5)
Proof. From the definition of
in (3.4), it follows that
(3.6)
Given that the gradient of the function
is
-Lipschitz continuous within
, it can be inferred that the function pair
possesses
-smooth adaptability. Consequently, by referring to Lemma2.2, we are able to deduce a certain result
(3.7)
Utilizing the optimal condition (3.2)
, and by inequality (3.7) into identity (3.6), we achieve a certain outcome
(3.8)
In which the final inequality is established by applying the three-point identity and (3.9).
(3.9)
Subsequently, we proceed to estimate the remaining terms.
Indeed,
and
By merging the two equalities, we obtain:
(3.10)
The final equation is derived by employing the three-point equation (3.11) (3.121) and incorporating the optimality conditions (3.2c).
(3.11)
(3.12)
Given that
is the minimizer of
with respect to the variable
, we have:
(3.13)
Obsevre that
Consequently, by adding up the inequalities (3.8), (3.10) and (3.13), we arrive at the conclusion that:
(3.14)
Considering the 1-strong convexity and
-smoothness of the function
, we can respectively derive the following inequalities:
Given that
is 1-strong convex, we can deduce that:
(3.16)
Hence, from the aforementioned equation (3.15), we are able to derive the following:
(3.16)
Combining optimimal condition (3.2c)
(3.17)
Additionally, by applying the triangle inequality, we can know that:
(3.18)
So combining (3.6), (3.17) and (3.18) we can derive the following result
(3.19)
And by the same token, we can get an inequality for
(3.20)
Next, we declare that
(3.21)
To prove (3.21), we consider two cases. When
, (3.21) holds trivially. Now, we assume
. Since
is
-Lipschitz, we have
where the second inequality follows from that
is Lipschitz continuous with
on any bounded subset of
, that is
Since
, (3.21) becomes
(3.22)
And we also know
(3.23)
And
Since
and
will affect the result of our calculation, we will classify and discuss them based on the different values of
.
i) if
, then we put (3.19) (3.20) and (3.22) into (3.14), we can get
(3.24)
ii) if
, and from the formula above we can get
(3.25)
The proof is complete.
Lemma 3.2 Let
be the sequence generated by the Generalized Bregman ADMM (1.6), which is assumed to be bounded. Then we have
(3.26)
Proof: Given that the sequence
is bounded, it follows that there exists a subsequence
such that
. As
is lower semicontinuous and
is continuous, it can be deduced that the function
is also lower semicontinuous. Therefore,
As a result,
is bounded from below. Additionally, since
is nonincreasing, it follows that
is convergent. Moreover,
is convergent, and
. According to equation (3.5), we have
Summing over
, it follows
Since
, we have
, which implies
. Hence, it follows from (3.22) that
.
Recall that
Subtracting the first equality from the second equality, we obtain
Rearranging the above equation and taking the square of the
-norm, it follows
(3.27)
On the other hand,
(3.28)
From (ii) of Assumption 3.1, we note that
(3.29)
Combining (3.27) - (3.29) together, we get
(3.30)
where
. Then, (3.30) implies
. Thus,
. This completes the proof. □
Lemma 3.3 t
be the sequence generated by the Generalized Bregman ADMM (1.3), which is assumed to be bounded. Furthermore, there exists
such that
Proof: By definition of function
, we have the following system of equations:
(3.31)
Combining equation (3.31) with optimality condition (3.1), we obtain:
In addition, By the
-smoothness of the function
, we can deduce that
From formula (3.20) we know the following result
In addition,
Thus, if we set
Then it follows from lemma 2.3 that
. Moreover, there exist
such that
Notice that, we can deduce from (3.22) that
We define
, it follows from above... that
This completes the proof. □
Lemma 3.4 Let
be the sequence generated by the Generalized Bregman ADMM (1.3), which is assumed to be bounded. Let
denote the set of its limit points. Then
i)
is a nonempty compact set, and
ii)
, where
denotes the set of all stationary points of
;
iii)
is finite and constant on
, which equals to
Proof: We proof the results item by item.
i) The item follows as an elementary consequence of the definition of limit points.
ii) For any fixed
, then there exists a subsequence
that converges to
. By the definition of the augmented Lagrangian function (3.3), the x-subproblem of (1.6) is equivalent to
that means
is the global minimizer of
for the variable
, then it holds that
(3.32)
On one hand, using (3.32) and the continuity of
with respect to
and
, we have
(3.33)
On the other hand, (3.26) implies
, which means that the subsequence
also converges to
. From the lower semicontinuity of
, we have
(3.34)
Then by combining (3.33) and (3.34) together we can get
which implies
(3.35)
Passing to the limit in (3.2) along the subsequence
and invoking (3.35) and the continuity of
, it follows that
The last equation implies that
due to the strong convexity of
. Thus,
is a critical point of (3.3), which implies that
.
iii) For any point
, there exists a subsequence
that converges to
. Combining equations (3.33), (3.34) and the fact that
is nonincreasing, we can get
Therefore,
is finite and constant on
, Moreover,
The proof is completed. □
In the following, we will present an important result of this paper, which provides a detailed analysis of the convergence of Generalized Bregman ADMM (1.4).
Theorem 3.1 Let
be the sequence generated by the Generalized Bregman ADMM (1.3), which is assumed to be bounded. Suppose that
is a KL function, then
has finite length, that is
and as a consequence,
converges to a critical point of
.
Proof: From the proof of Lemma 3.4, we know that
for all
. Let us now consider two cases.
i) If there exists an integer
such that
, then using (3.5), we have
for any
. Thus, we obtain
for any
. Combining (3.22) and (3.30), we further derive that
and
for any
, which implies that
. Hence, the assertion holds.
ii) If
for all
, then since
, there exists
, such that for any
, we have
for all
. Moreover, with
, it follows that there exists
such that for any
,
for all
. Therefore, when for all
, we can obtain the following:
Since
is a nonempty compact set and
is constant on
, we can apply Lemma 2.4 with
to deduce that for any
,
(3.36)
Using the fact that
, and the concavity of
, we can show that
Combining the above inequality with
,
and relation (3.36), we obtain
(3.37)
For convenience, we define
. Then, (3.37) can be simplified as
(3.38)
According to the 1-strong convexity of the function
, and combining Lemma 3.1 with inequality (3.38), we get that for all
,
Then
Using the fact that
, we obtain
(3.39)
Summing (3.39) over for
yields
Notice that
from Definition 2.9. Rearranging terms and taking
yield
(3.40)
Therefore,
(3.41)
Combining (3.22) and (3.41), we obtain
(3.42)
Using (3.30), we obtain
Combining this inequality with (3.41) and (3.42), we have
(3.43)
Additionally, we note that
Using (3.41) - (3.43), we can conclude that
implying that
is a Cauchy sequence and thus convergent. By Lemma 3.4, we complete the proof. □
Theorem 3.2 (Convergence rate) Let
be the sequence generated by the Generalized Bregman ADMM (1.6) and converge to
. Assuming that
has the KL property at
with
,
. Then, the following results hold:
i) If
, then the sequence
converges in a finite number of steps.
ii) If
, then there exists
and
such that
iii) If
, then there exists
such that
Proof: When
, we have
and
. Suppose, by contradiction, that
does not converge in a finite number of steps. Then, the KL property at
yields, for any sufficiently large
,
, which contradicts Lemma 3.3.
Next, let
and set
for
. By the triangle inequality, we have
, which allows us to estimate
. With these notations, it follows from (3.40) that
By invoking the KL property of
at
, we obtain
which is equivalent to
(3.44)
Using Lemma 3.3, we get
(3.45)
Combining (3.44) and (3.45), we obtain that there exists
such that
and then
Sequences satisfying such inequalities have been studied in Attouch and Bolte [37]. It follows that
• If
, then there exists
and
, such that
(3.46)
• If
, then there exists
, such that
(3.47)
Recalling that
we obtain
(3.48)
Furthermore, from the relations
and
it follows that
We multiply both sides of the above equation by
at the same time
Now combine the above equation with the 1-strong convexity of
, and then we can get the following
(3.49)
Combining (3.48) and (3.49), we immediately obtain the desired inequalities from (3.46) and (3.47).
4. Conclusion
In this paper, we primarily analyze the generalized Bregman alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) for solving nonconvex separable problems subject to linear constraints. In contrast to the classical alternating direction method of multipliers, we modify the iterative format of the second subproblem. This modification relaxes the condition of global Lipschitz continuity for the gradient of differentiable functions. Additionally, we introduce a relaxation parameter
, inspired by the acceleration technique of the proximal point algorithm (PPA), to enhance the algorithm’s performance. Under the assumption that the augmented Lagrangian function satisfies the Kurdyka-Lojasiewicz inequality, we prove that when the penalty parameters in the augmented Lagrangian function are sufficiently large, the iterative sequence generated by the algorithm converges to a critical point of the augmented Lagrangian function. Lastly, we set the corresponding parameters to further analyze the convergence rate of the algorithm.
NOTES
*Corresponding author.