Non-asymptotic upper bounds for the reconstruction error of PCA

Abstract: We analyse the reconstruction error of principal component analysis (PCA) and prove non-asymptotic upper bounds for the corresponding excess risk. These bounds unify and improve existing upper bounds from the literature. In particular, they give oracle inequalities under mild eigenvalue conditions. The bounds reveal that the excess risk differs significantly from usually considered subspace distances based on canonical angles. Our approach relies on the analysis of empirical spectral projectors combined with concentration inequalities for weighted empirical covariance operators and empirical eigenvalues.