On the convergence of higher-order orthogonality iteration

Abstract: The higher-order orthogonality iteration (HOOI) has been popularly used for finding a best low-multilinear-rank approximation of a tensor. However, its iterate sequence convergence is still an open question. In this paper, we first analyze 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 limit point, we establish its global convergence through the so-called Kurdyka-Lojasiewicz (KL) property. In addition, we show that if the starting point is sufficiently close to any block-nondegenerate globally optimal solution, the greedy HOOI produces a 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 same convergence results hold for the original HOOI and thus positively address the open question.