Expressivity and Approximation Properties of Deep Neural Networks with ReLUk^k Activation

In this paper, we investigate the expressivity and approximation properties of deep neural networks employing the ReLU$^k$ activation function for $k \geq 2$. Although deep ReLU networks can approximate polynomials effectively, deep ReLU$^k$ networks have the capability to represent higher-degree polynomials precisely. Our initial contribution is a comprehensive, constructive proof for polynomial representation using deep ReLU$^k$ networks. This allows us to establish an upper bound on both the size and count of network parameters. Consequently, we are able to demonstrate a suboptimal approximation rate for functions from Sobolev spaces as well as for analytic functions. Additionally, through an exploration of the representation power of deep ReLU$^k$ networks for shallow networks, we reveal that deep ReLU$^k$ networks can approximate functions from a range of variation spaces, extending beyond those generated solely by the ReLU$^k$ activation function. This finding demonstrates the adaptability of deep ReLU$^k$ networks in approximating functions within various variation spaces

ChebNet: Efficient and Stable Constructions of Deep Neural Networks with Rectified Power Units using Chebyshev Approximations

In a recent paper [B. Li, S. Tang and H. Yu, arXiv:1903.05858], it was shown that deep neural networks built with rectified power units (RePU) can give better approximation for sufficient smooth functions than those with rectified linear units, by converting polynomial approximation given in power series into deep neural networks with optimal complexity and no approximation error. However, in practice, power series are not easy to compute. In this paper, we propose a new and more stable way to construct deep RePU neural networks based on Chebyshev polynomial approximations. By using a hierarchical structure of Chebyshev polynomial approximation in frequency domain, we build efficient and stable deep neural network constructions. In theory, ChebNets and the deep RePU nets based on Power series have the same upper error bounds for general function approximations. But numerically, ChebNets are much more stable. Numerical results show that the constructed ChebNets can be further trained and obtain much better results than those obtained by training deep RePU nets constructed basing on power series.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures, 2 table