An optimal scheduled learning rate for a randomized Kaczmarz algorithm

Abstract

We study how the learning rate affects the performance of a relaxed randomized Kaczmarz algorithm for solving $A x \approx b + \varepsilon$, where $A x =b$ is a consistent linear system and $\varepsilon$ has independent mean zero random entries. We derive a learning rate schedule which optimizes a bound on the expected error that is sharp in certain cases; in contrast to the exponential convergence of the standard randomized Kaczmarz algorithm, our optimized bound involves the reciprocal of the Lambert-$W$ function of an exponential.