Phase Transition Analysis of Sparse Support Detection from Noisy Measurements

Abstract: This paper investigates the problem of sparse support detection (SSD) via a detection-oriented algorithm named Bayesian hypothesis test via belief propagation (BHT-BP). Our main focus is to compare BHT-BP to an estimation-based algorithm, called CS-BP, and show its superiority in the SSD problem. For this investigation, we perform a phase transition (PT) analysis over the plain of the noise level and signal magnitude on the signal support. This PT analysis sharply specifies the required signal magnitude for the detection under a certain noise level. In addition, we provide an experimental validation to assure the PT analysis. Our analytical and experimental results show the fact that BHT-BP detects the signal support against additive noise more robustly than CS-BP does.