Abstract

We consider the problem of parameter estimation from a generalized linear model with a random design matrix that is orthogonally invariant in law. Such a model allows the design to have an arbitrary distribution of singular values and only assumes that its singular vectors are generic. It is a vast generalization of the i.i.d. Gaussian design typically considered in the theoretical literature, and is motivated by the fact that real data often have a complex correlation structure so that methods relying on i.i.d. assumptions can be highly suboptimal. Building on the paradigm of spectrally-initialized iterative optimization, this paper proposes optimal spectral estimators and combines them with an approximate message passing (AMP) algorithm, establishing rigorous performance guarantees for these two algorithmic steps. Both the spectral initialization and the subsequent AMP meet existing conjectures on the fundamental limits to estimation—the former on the optimal sample complexity for efficient weak recovery, and the latter on the optimal errors. Numerical experiments suggest the effectiveness of our methods and accuracy of our theory beyond orthogonally invariant data. Based on joint work with Hong Chang Ji, Ramji Venkataramanan and Marco Mondelli.