We study the sample median of independently generated quasi-Monte Carlo estimators based on randomized digital nets and prove it approximates the target integral value at almost the optimal convergence rate for various function spaces. In contrast to previous methods, the algorithm does not require a priori knowledge of underlying function spaces or even an input of pre-designed ( t , m , s ) (t,m,s) -digital nets, and is therefore easier to implement. This study provides further evidence that some types of randomized quasi-Monte Carlo estimators are heavy-tailed when applied to smooth integrands and taking the median can significantly improve the error by filtering out the outliers.
Recent advances in quasi-Monte Carlo integration demonstrate that the median of linearly scrambled digital net estimators achieves near-optimal convergence rates for high-dimensional integrals without requiring a priori knowledge of the integrand’s smoothness. Building on this framework, we prove that the median estimator attains dimension-independent convergence, a property known as strong tractability in complexity theory, under tractability conditions characterized by low effective dimensionality. Using a probabilistic, integrand-specific error criterion, our analysis establishes both faster and dimension-independent convergence under weaker assumptions than previously possible in the worst-case setting.
Abstract. We study quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) integration over the multidimensional unit cube in several weighted function spaces with different smoothness classes. We consider approximating the integral of a function by the median of several integral estimates under independent and random choices of the underlying QMC point sets (either linearly scrambled digital nets or infinite-precision polynomial lattice point sets). Even though our approach does not require any information on the smoothness and weights of a target function space as an input, we can prove a probabilistic upper bound on the worst-case error for the respective weighted function space, where the failure probability converges to 0 exponentially fast as the number of estimates increases. Our obtained rates of convergence are nearly optimal for function spaces with finite smoothness, and we can attain a dimension-independent super-polynomial convergence for a class of infinitely differentiable functions. This implies that our median-based QMC rule is universal in the sense that it does not need to be adjusted to the smoothness and the weights of the function spaces and yet exhibits the nearly optimal rate of convergence. Numerical experiments support our theoretical results.
We study a random sampling technique to approximate integrals ∫[0, 1]s f(x) dx by averaging the function at some sampling points. We focus on cases where the integrand is smooth, which is a problem which occurs in statistics. The convergence rate of the approximation error depends on the smoothness of the function f and the sampling technique. For instance, Monte Carlo (MC) sampling yields a convergence of the root mean square error (RMSE) of order N−1/2 (where N is the number of samples) for functions f with finite variance. Randomized QMC (RQMC), a combination of MC and quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC), achieves a RMSE of order N−3/2+ε under the stronger assumption that the integrand has bounded variation. A combination of RQMC with local antithetic sampling achieves a convergence of the RMSE of order N−3/2−1/s+ε (where s ≥ 1 is the dimension) for functions with mixed partial derivatives up to order two. Additional smoothness of the integrand does not improve the rate of convergence of these algorithms in general. On the other hand, it is known that without additional smoothness of the integrand it is not possible to improve the convergence rate. This paper introduces a new RQMC algorithm, for which we prove that it achieves a convergence of the root mean square error (RMSE) of order N−α−1/2+ε provided the integrand satisfies the strong assumption that it has square integrable partial mixed derivatives up to order α > 1 in each variable. Known lower bounds on the RMSE show that this rate of convergence cannot be improved in general for integrands with this smoothness. We provide numerical examples for which the RMSE converges approximately with order N−5/2 and N−7/2, in accordance with the theoretical upper bound.
We study the numerical approximation of high-dimensional integrals using randomized quasi-Monte Carlo (RQMC) methods, with a focus on scrambled Sobol' sequences. While asymptotically faster than Monte Carlo, classical RQMC suffers from error bounds that grow exponentially in the dimension
s, and its root mean squared error (RMSE) convergence rate is generally no better than
O(N−3/2). To overcome these limitations, we combine two recent developments: Suzuki's coarse scrambling and the median trick. Coarse scrambling randomizes Sobol' sequences according to their generating base polynomials and significantly reduces the maximal gain coefficient. By appropriately choosing the base polynomials, we show that the coefficient can be made uniformly bounded in
s, yielding an
O(N−1/2) RMSE for
L2 integrands with a dimension-independent constant. The median trick then enables near-optimal convergence for function classes beyond
L2: for
Lp integrands with
p∈(1,2), the median of independent coarsely scrambled estimates achieves an error of
O(N−1+1/p) with high probability; for integrands in the Haar wavelet space
Hwav,α,s,p,q with
αp:=α−(1/p−1/2)+>0, we prove a high-probability error bound of
O(N−αp−1/2+ε) for any
ε>0; the bound improves to
O(N−r−αp−1/2+ε) when the integrand has dominating mixed derivatives of order
r≥1 that belong to
Hwav,α,s,p,q. The latter two bounds are uniform in
s under suitable conditions on the ANOVA components of the integrands. Numerical experiments confirm the predicted convergence rates and demonstrate the robustness of the proposed approach.
We study quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) integration of smooth functions defined over the multidimensional unit cube. Inspired by a recent work of Pan and Owen, we study a new construction-free median QMC rule which can exploit the smoothness and the weights of function spaces adaptively. For weighted Korobov spaces, we draw a sample of
r independent generating vectors of rank-1 lattice rules, compute the integral estimate for each, and approximate the true integral by the median of these
r estimates. For weighted Sobolev spaces, we use the same approach but with the rank-1 lattice rules replaced by high-order polynomial lattice rules. A major advantage over the existing approaches is that we do not need to construct good generating vectors by a computer search algorithm, while our median QMC rule achieves almost the optimal worst-case error rate for the respective function space with any smoothness and weights, with a probability that converges to 1 exponentially fast as
r increases. Numerical experiments illustrate and support our theoretical findings.
This study investigates the performance of median-of-means sampling compared to traditional mean-of-means sampling for computing the Keister function integral using Randomized Quasi-Monte Carlo (RQMC) methods. The research tests both lattice points and digital nets as point distributions across dimensions 2, 3, 5, and 8, with sample sizes ranging from 2^8 to 2^19 points. Results demonstrate that median-of-means sampling consistently outperforms mean-of-means for sample sizes larger than 10^3 points, while mean-of-means shows better accuracy with smaller sample sizes, particularly for digital nets. The study also confirms previous theoretical predictions about median-of-means' superior performance with larger sample sizes and reflects the known challenges of maintaining accuracy in higher-dimensional integration. These findings support recent research suggesting median-of-means as a promising alternative to traditional sampling methods in numerical integration, though limitations in sample size and dimensionality warrant further investigation with different test functions and larger parameter spaces.