Robust Low-rank Tensor Decomposition with the $\operatorname{L_2}$ Criterion

Abstract: The growing prevalence of tensor data, or multiway arrays, in science and engineering applications motivates the need for tensor decompositions that are robust against outliers. In this paper, we present a robust Tucker decomposition estimator based on the $\operatorname{L_2}$ criterion, called the Tucker-$\operatorname{L_2E}$. Our numerical experiments demonstrate that Tucker-$\operatorname{L_2E}$ has empirically stronger recovery performance in more challenging high-rank scenarios compared with existing alternatives. The appropriate Tucker-rank can be selected in a data-driven manner with cross-validation or hold-out validation. The practical effectiveness of Tucker-$\operatorname{L_2E}$ is validated on real data applications in fMRI tensor denoising, PARAFAC analysis of fluorescence data, and feature extraction for classification of corrupted images.