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Quasi-Monte Carlo integration over non-cubical domains

Nilofar Mortazavi

Published Jan 1, 2017• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Monte Carlo (MQ) method is a powerful tool to approximate high dimensional integrals. The disadvantage of ordinary MQ is the slow convergence rate by cause of the essential randomness of this method. Computations of this convergence can lead to pure time consuming. Quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) method yields considerably better results since this method is a deterministic alternative which uses Low-Discrepancy sequences instead of random samples . There are a multiplicity of big open problems in QMC-methods, problems partly arising from applications and partly arising from theory. QMC are developed to integrate over unite cube, where it has much more accuracy than MC for integrands of bounded variation. Integration over more general spaces such as triangles, disks and Cartesian products of such spaces is more challenging for QMC. Nevertheless in real-world applications various problems are defined over such spaces. The aim of this thesis is to provide a survey of a solution of such problems of numerical integration defined over non-cubical spaces. We present QMC and randomised QMC (RQMC) constructions in the triangle with a vanishing discrepancy based on the recent work of Basu 2016. The QMC construction is a version of the Van der Corput-Halton sequences specially made to the unit triangle. The attraction of scrambled net is replication based error estimation for QMC with slightly the same accuracy as QMC, and for smooth enough integrands.

DOI
10.13140/rg.2.2.35187.63526

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Monte Carlo (MQ) method is a powerful tool to approximate high dimensional integrals. The disadvantage of ordinary MQ is the slow convergence rate by cause of the essential randomness of this method. Computations of this convergence can lead to pure time consuming. Quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) method yields considerably better results since this method is a deterministic alternative which uses Low-Discrepancy sequences instead of random samples . There are a multiplicity of big open problems in QMC-methods, problems partly arising from applications and partly arising from theory. QMC are developed to integrate over unite cube, where it has much more accuracy than MC for integrands of bounded variation. Integration over more general spaces such as triangles, disks and Cartesian products of such spaces is more challenging for QMC. Nevertheless in real-world applications various problems are defined over such spaces. The aim of this thesis is to provide a survey of a solution of such problems of numerical integration defined over non-cubical spaces. We present QMC and randomised QMC (RQMC) constructions in the triangle with a vanishing discrepancy based on the recent work of Basu 2016. The QMC construction is a version of the Van der Corput-Halton sequences specially made to the unit triangle. The attraction of scrambled net is replication based error estimation for QMC with slightly the same accuracy as QMC, and for smooth enough integrands.
This paper is a contemporary review of QMC (‘quasi-Monte Carlo’) methods, that is, equal-weight rules for the approximate evaluation of high-dimensional integrals over the unit cube [0,1] s , where s may be large, or even infinite. After a general introduction, the paper surveys recent developments in lattice methods, digital nets, and related themes. Among those recent developments are methods of construction of both lattices and digital nets, to yield QMC rules that have a prescribed rate of convergence for sufficiently smooth functions, and ideally also guaranteed slow growth (or no growth) of the worst-case error as s increases. A crucial role is played by parameters called ‘weights’, since a careful use of the weight parameters is needed to ensure that the worst-case errors in an appropriately weighted function space are bounded, or grow only slowly, as the dimension s increases. Important tools for the analysis are weighted function spaces, reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces, and discrepancy, all of which are discussed with an appropriate level of detail.
We survey basic ideas and results on randomized quasi-Monte Carlo (RQMC) methods, discuss their practical aspects, and give numerical illustrations. RQMC can improve accuracy compared with standard Monte Carlo (MC) when estimating an integral interpreted as a mathematical expectation. RQMC estimators are unbiased and their variance converges at a faster rate (under certain conditions) than MC estimators, as a function of the sample size. Variants of RQMC also work for the simulation of Markov chains, for function approximation and optimization, for solving partial differential equations, etc. In this introductory survey, we look at how RQMC point sets and sequences are constructed, how we measure their uniformity, why they can work for high-dimensional integrals, and how can they work when simulating Markov chains over a large number of steps.
Most quasi-Monte Carlo research focuses on sampling from the unit cube. Many problems, especially in computer graphics, are defined via quadrature over the unit triangle. Quasi-Monte Carlo methods for the triangle have been developed by Pillands and Cools (2005) and by Brandolini et al. (2013). This paper presents two QMC constructions in the triangle with a vanishing discrepancy. The first is a version of the van der Corput sequence customized to the unit triangle. It is an extensible digital construction that attains a discrepancy below 12/sqrt(N). The second construction rotates an integer lattice through an angle whose tangent is a quadratic irrational number. It attains a discrepancy of O(log(N)/N) which is the best possible rate. Previous work strongly indicated that such a discrepancy was possible, but no constructions were available. Scrambling the digits of the first construction improves its accuracy for integration of smooth functions. Both constructions also yield convergent estimates for integrands that are Riemann integrable on the triangle without requiring bounded variation.
Quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) methods are known to achieve faster convergence rates than Monte Carlo (MC), but their effectiveness in high dimensions often relies on additional structure, such as low effective dimension or carefully chosen coordinate weights. Moreover, in many applications one has access only to random samples rather than deterministic QMC constructions. In this work, we extend the recent method of N. Bansal and H. Jiang and construct high-dimensional QMC point sets from random samples via combinatorial discrepancy. We establish error bounds for these constructions in weighted function spaces, including settings with low effective dimension in both the superposition and truncation senses. We also implement the resulting Subgaussian Transference algorithm and present numerical experiments to assess empirically the performance of these constructions.
Despite possessing the low-discrepancy property, the classical d-dimensional Halton sequence is known to exhibit poorly distributed projections whendddbecomes even moderately large. This, in turn, often implies bad performance when implemented in quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) methods in comparison to, for example, the Sobol’ sequence. As an attempt to eradicate this issue, we propose an adapted Halton sequence built by integer and irrational based van der Corput sequences and show empirically improved performance with respect to the accuracy of estimates in numerical integration and simulation. In addition, for the first time, a scrambling algorithm is proposed for irrational based digital sequences.
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 sss, and its root mean squared error (RMSE) convergence rate is generally no better than O(N−3/2)O(N^{-3/2})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 sss, yielding an O(N−1/2)O(N^{-1/2})O(N−1/2) RMSE for L2L^2L2 integrands with a dimension-independent constant. The median trick then enables near-optimal convergence for function classes beyond L2L^2L2: for LpL^pLp integrands with p∈(1,2)p\in(1,2)p∈(1,2), the median of independent coarsely scrambled estimates achieves an error of O(N−1+1/p)O(N^{-1+1/p})O(N−1+1/p) with high probability; for integrands in the Haar wavelet space Hwav,α,s,p,q\mathcal H_{\mathrm{wav},α,s,p,q}Hwav,α,s,p,q​ with αp:=α−(1/p−1/2)+>0α_p:=α-(1/p-1/2)_+>0αp​:=α−(1/p−1/2)+​>0, we prove a high-probability error bound of O(N−αp−1/2+ε)O(N^{-α_p-1/2+\varepsilon})O(N−αp​−1/2+ε) for any ε>0\varepsilon>0ε>0; the bound improves to O(N−r−αp−1/2+ε)O(N^{-r-α_p-1/2+\varepsilon})O(N−r−αp​−1/2+ε) when the integrand has dominating mixed derivatives of order r≥1r\ge1r≥1 that belong to Hwav,α,s,p,q\mathcal H_{\mathrm{wav},α,s,p,q}Hwav,α,s,p,q​. The latter two bounds are uniform in sss 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.