On the convergence of higher-order orthogonal iteration

Abstract

The higher-order orthogonal iteration (HOOI) has been popularly used for finding a best low-multilinear rank approximation of a tensor. However, its convergence is still an open question. In this paper, we first analyse a greedy HOOI, which updates each factor matrix by selecting from the best candidates one that is closest to the current iterate. Assuming the existence of a block-nondegenerate cluster point, we establish its global iterate sequence convergence through the so-called Kurdyka–ᴌojasiewicz property. In addition, we show that if the starting point is sufficiently close to any block-nondegenerate globally optimal solution, the greedy HOOI produces an iterate sequence convergent to a globally optimal solution. Relating the iterate sequence by the original HOOI to that by the greedy HOOI, we then show that the original HOOI has global convergence on the multilinear subspace sequence and thus positively address the open question.