A greedy algorithm for sparse precision matrix approximation

Abstract: Precision matrix estimation is an important problem in statistical data analysis. This paper introduces a fast sparse precision matrix estimation algorithm, namely GISS$^{{\rho}}$, which is originally introduced for compressive sensing. The algorithm GISS$^{{\rho}}$ is derived based on $l_1$ minimization while with the computation advantage of greedy algorithms. We analyze the asymptotic convergence rate of the proposed GISS$^{{\rho}}$ for sparse precision matrix estimation and sparsity recovery properties with respect to the stopping criteria. Finally, we numerically compare GISS$^{\rho}$ to other sparse recovery algorithms, such as ADMM and HTP in three settings of precision matrix estimation. The numerical results show the advantages of the proposed algorithm.