Tractability of the function approximation problem in terms of the kernel's shape and scale parameters

Abstract

This article studies the problem of approximating functions belonging to a Hilbert space $\mathcal H_d$ with a reproducing kernel of the form $$\tilde K_d(\boldsymbol x,\boldsymbol t):=\prod_{\ell=1}^d \left(1-α_\ell^2+α_\ell^2K_{γ_\ell}(x_\ell,t_\ell)\right)\ \ \ \mbox{for all} \ \ \ \boldsymbol x,\boldsymbol t\in\mathbb R^d.$$ The $α_\ell\in[0,1]$ are scale parameters, and the $γ_\ell>0$ are sometimes called shape parameters. The reproducing kernel $K_γ$ corresponds to some Hilbert space of functions defined on $\mathbb R$. The kernel $\tilde K_d$ generalizes the anisotropic Gaussian reproducing kernel, whose tractability properties have been established in the literature. We present sufficient conditions on $\{α_\ell γ_\ell\}_{\ell=1}^{\infty}$ under which polynomial tractability holds for function approximation problems on $\mathcal H_d$. The exponent of strong polynomial tractability arises from bounds on the eigenvalues of a positive definite linear operator.