We offer a survey of recent results on covariance estimation for heavy- tailed distributions. By unifying ideas scattered in the literature, we propose user-friendly methods that facilitate practical implementation. Specifically, we introduce element-wise and spectrum-wise truncation operators, as well as their M-estimator counterparts, to robustify the sample covariance matrix. Different from the classical notion of robustness that is characterized by the breakdown property, we focus on the tail robustness which is evidenced by the connection between nonasymptotic deviation and confidence level. The key observation is that the estimators needs to adapt to the sample size, dimensional- ity of the data and the noise level to achieve optimal tradeoff between bias and robustness. Furthermore, to facilitate their practical use, we propose data-driven procedures that automatically calibrate the tuning parameters. We demonstrate their applications to a series of structured models in high dimensions, including the bandable and low-rank covariance matrices and sparse precision matrices. Numerical studies lend strong support to the proposed methods.
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Estimation of the covariance structure of heavy-tailed distributions
We propose and analyze a new estimator of the covariance matrix that admits strong theoretical guarantees under weak assumptions on the underlying distribution, such as existence of moments of only low order. While estimation of covariance matrices corresponding to sub-Gaussian distributions is well-understood, much less in known in the case of heavy-tailed data. As K. Balasubramanian and M. Yuan write, "data from real-world experiments oftentimes tend to be corrupted with outliers and/or exhibit heavy tails. In such cases, it is not clear that those covariance matrix estimators .. remain optimal" and "what are the other possible strategies to deal with heavy tailed distributions warrant further studies." We make a step towards answering this question and prove tight deviation inequalities for the proposed estimator that depend only on the parameters controlling the intrinsic dimension'' associated to the covariance matrix (as opposed to the dimension of the ambient space); in particular, our results are applicable in the case of high-dimensional observations.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1712956
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10059483
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- NIPS
- ISSN:
- 1365-8875
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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