A block Lanczos method for large-scale quadratic minimization problems with orthogonality constraints

Abstract: Quadratic minimization problems with orthogonality constraints (QMPO) play an important role in many applications of science and engineering. However, some existing methods may suffer from low accuracy or heavy workload for large-scale QMPO. Krylov subspace methods are popular for large-scale optimization problems. In this work, we propose a block Lanczos method for solving the large-scale QMPO. In the proposed method, the original problem is projected into a small-sized one, and the Riemannian Trust-Region method is employed to solve the reduced QMPO. Convergence results on the optimal solution, the optimal objective function value, the multiplier and the KKT error are established. Moreover, we give the convergence speed of optimal solution, and show that if the block Lanczos process terminates, then an exact KKT solution is derived. Numerical experiments illustrate the numerical behavior of the proposed algorithm, and demonstrate that it is more powerful than many state-of-the-art algorithms for large-scale quadratic minimization problems with orthogonality constraints.