Discretizing Distributions with Exact Moments: Error Estimate and Convergence Analysis

The maximum entropy principle is a powerful tool for solving underdetermined inverse problems. This paper considers the problem of discretizing a continuous distribution, which arises in various applied fields. We obtain the approximating distribution by minimizing the Kullback-Leibler information (relative entropy) of the unknown discrete distribution relative to an initial discretization based on a quadrature formula subject to some moment constraints. We study the theoretical error bound and the convergence of this approximation method as the number of discrete points increases. We prove that (i) the theoretical error bound of the approximate expectation of any bounded continuous function has at most the same order as the quadrature formula we start with, and (ii) the approximate discrete distribution weakly converges to the given continuous distribution. Moreover, we present some numerical examples that show the advantage of the method and apply to numerically solving an optimal portfolio problem.Comment: 20 pages, 14 figure

Accelerated gradient descent method for functionals of probability measures by new convexity and smoothness based on transport maps

We consider problems of minimizing functionals $\mathcal{F}$ of probability measures on the Euclidean space. To propose an accelerated gradient descent algorithm for such problems, we consider gradient flow of transport maps that give push-forward measures of an initial measure. Then we propose a deterministic accelerated algorithm by extending Nesterov's acceleration technique with momentum. This algorithm do not based on the Wasserstein geometry. Furthermore, to estimate the convergence rate of the accelerated algorithm, we introduce new convexity and smoothness for $\mathcal{F}$ based on transport maps. As a result, we can show that the accelerated algorithm converges faster than a normal gradient descent algorithm. Numerical experiments support this theoretical result.Comment: 31 page

Monte Carlo construction of cubature on Wiener space

In this paper, we investigate application of mathematical optimization to construction of a cubature formula on Wiener space, which is a weak approximation method of stochastic differential equations introduced by Lyons and Victoir (Cubature on Wiener Space, Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A 460, 169--198). After giving a brief review of the cubature theory on Wiener space, we show that a cubature formula of general dimension and degree can be obtained through a Monte Carlo sampling and linear programming. This paper also includes an extension of stochastic Tchakaloff's theorem, which technically yields the proof of our main result.Comment: 24 pages; the organization is modified and Proposition 13 is newly adde