Riemannian Distances between Geometric Means

Abstract

In this paper we study the problem of finding a weighted geometric mean sufficiently close to the weighted Karcher mean of positive definite matrices. This problem arises in various numerical algorithms for computing the weighted Karcher mean and in a physical problem of averaging on the Riemannian manifold of positive definite matrices. We prove that this is possible for any “convex" geometric means satisfying the Jensen-type inequality for geodesically convex functions varying over an open set of weights in the simplex of positive probability vectors. This follows from a useful estimation of the Riemannian distance between the Karcher mean and any convex geometric means. A better upper bound between the Karcher mean and the Riemannian convex combination admitting an explicit formula is presented.