Intractability Results for Integration and Discrepancy

Abstract

We mainly study multivariate (uniform or Gaussian) integration defined for integrand spaces Fd such as weighted Sobolev spaces of functions of d variables with smooth mixed derivatives. The weight γj moderates the behavior of functions with respect to the jth variable. For γj≡1, we obtain the classical Sobolev spaces whereas for decreasing γj's the weighted Sobolev spaces consist of functions with diminishing dependence on the jth variables. We study the minimal errors of quadratures that use n function values for the unit ball of the space Fd. It is known that if the smoothness parameter of the Sobolev space is one, then the minimal error is the same as the discrepancy. Let n(ε, Fd) be the smallest n for which we reduce the initial error, i.e., the error with n=0, by a factor ε. The main problem studied in this paper is to determine whether the problem is intractable, i.e., whether n(ε, Fd) grows faster than polynomially in ε−1 or d. In particular, we prove intractability of integration (and discrepancy) if limsupd∑dj=1γj/lnd=∞. Previously, such results were known only for restricted classes of quadratures. For γj≡1, the, following bounds hold for discrepancy •with boundary conditions1.0628d(1+o(1))⩽n(ε, Fd)⩽1.5dε−2,asd→∞,•without boundary conditions1.0463d(1+o(1))⩽n(ε, Fd)⩽1.125dε−2,asd→∞. These results are obtained by analyzing arbitrary linear tensor product functionals Id defined over weighted tensor product reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces Fd of functions of d variables. We introduce the notion of a decomposable kernel. For reproducing kernels that have a decomposable part we prove intractability of all Id with non-zero subproblems with respect to the decomposable part of the kernel, as long as the weights satisfy the condition mentioned above.