Risk estimation for matrix recovery with spectral regularization

Abstract: In this paper, we develop an approach to recursively estimate the quadratic risk for matrix recovery problems regularized with spectral functions. Toward this end, in the spirit of the SURE theory, a key step is to compute the (weak) derivative and divergence of a solution with respect to the observations. As such a solution is not available in closed form, but rather through a proximal splitting algorithm, we propose to recursively compute the divergence from the sequence of iterates. A second challenge that we unlocked is the computation of the (weak) derivative of the proximity operator of a spectral function. To show the potential applicability of our approach, we exemplify it on a matrix completion problem to objectively and automatically select the regularization parameter.