The purpose of this paper is to study the dynamical behavior of the sequence produced by a forward-backward algorithm involving two random maximal monotone operators and a sequence of decreasing step sizes. Defining a mean monotone operator as an Aumann integral, and assuming that the sum of the two mean operators is maximal (sufficient maximality conditions are provided), it is shown that with probability one, the interpolated process obtained from the iterates is an asymptotic pseudo trajectory in the sense of Bena " m and Hirsch of the differential inclusion involving the sum of the mean operators. The convergence of the empirical means of the iterates towards a zero of the sum of the mean operators is shown, as well as the convergence of the sequence itself to such a zero under a demipositivity assumption. These results find applications in a wide range of optimization or variational inequality problems in random environments.
This paper follows the line of thought of the recent paper @cite_16 , who studies the behavior of the random iterates @math in a Hilbert space, and establishes the convergence of the empirical means @math towards a zero of the mean operator @math . In the present paper, the proximal point algorithm is replaced with the more general forward-backward algorithm. Thanks to the dynamic approach developed here, the convergences of both @math and @math are studied.
@cite_16
2727154576 2963692017 2038497950 2963005234
A stochastic Forward-Backward algorithm with a constant step is studied. At each time step, this algorithm involves an independent copy of a couple of random maximal monotone operators. Defining a mean operator as a selection integral, the differential inclusion built from the sum of the two mean operators is considered. As a first result, it is shown that the interpolated process obtained from the iterates converges narrowly in the small step regime to the solution of this differential inclusion. In order to control the long term behavior of the iterates, a stability result is needed in addition. To this end, the sequence of the iterates is seen as a homogeneous Feller Markov chain whose transition kernel is parameterized by the algorithm step size. The cluster points of the Markov chains invariant measures in the small step regime are invariant for the semiflow induced by the differential inclusion. Conclusions regarding the long run behavior of the iterates for small steps are drawn. It is shown that when the sum of the mean operators is demipositive, the probabilities that the iterates are away from the set of zeros of this sum are small in Ces aro mean. The ergodic behavior of these iterates is studied as well. Applications of the proposed algorithm are considered. In particular, a detailed analysis of the random proximal gradient algorithm with constant step is performed. We investigate the asymptotic behavior of a stochastic version of the forward-backward splitting algorithm for finding a zero of the sum of a maximally monotone set-valued operator and a cocoercive operator in Hilbert spaces. Our general setting features stochastic approximations of the cocoercive operator and stochastic perturbations in the evaluation of the resolvents of the set-valued operator. In addition, relaxations and not necessarily vanishing proximal parameters are allowed. Weak and strong almost sure convergence properties of the iterates is established under mild conditions on the underlying stochastic processes. Leveraging these results, we also establish the almost sure convergence of the iterates of a stochastic variant of a primal-dual proximal splitting method for composite minimization problems. For the problem of minimizing a lower semicontinuous proper convex function f on a Hilbert space, the proximal point algorithm in exact form generates a sequence @math by taking @math to be the minimizes of @math , where @math . This algorithm is of interest for several reasons, but especially because of its role in certain computational methods based on duality, such as the Hestenes-Powell method of multipliers in nonlinear programming. It is investigated here in a more general form where the requirement for exact minimization at each iteration is weakened, and the subdifferential @math is replaced by an arbitrary maximal monotone operator T. Convergence is established under several criteria amenable to implementation. The rate of convergence is shown to be “typically” linear with an arbitrarily good modulus if @math stays large enough, in fact superlinear if @math . The case of @math is treated in extra detail. Applicati... The purpose of this paper is to establish the almost sure weak ergodic convergence of a sequence of iterates @math given by @math where @math is a collection of maximal monotone operators on a separable Hilbert space, @math is an independent identically distributed sequence of random variables on @math and @math is a positive sequence in @math . The weighted averaged sequence of iterates is shown to converge weakly to a zero (assumed to exist) of the Aumann expectation @math under the assumption that the latter is maximal. We consider applications to stochastic optimization problems of the form @math , where @math is a normal convex integrand and @math is a collection of closed convex sets. In this case, the iterations are closely related to a stochastic proximal algorithm recently proposed by Wang and Bertsekas [Increment...