High-Dimensional Regression with Binary Coefficients. Estimating Squared Error and a Phase Transition

We consider a sparse linear regression model Y=Xβ^{*}+W where X has a Gaussian entries, W is the noise vector with mean zero Gaussian entries, and β^{*} is a binary vector with support size (sparsity) k. Using a novel conditional second moment method we obtain a tight up to a multiplicative constant approximation of the optimal squared error \min_β\|Y-Xβ\|_{2}, where the minimization is over all k-sparse binary vectors β. The approximation reveals interesting structural properties of the underlying regression problem. In particular, a) We establish that n^*=2k\log p/\log (2k/σ^{2}+1) is a phase transition point with the following "all-or-nothing" property. When n exceeds n^{*}, (2k)^{-1}\|β_{2}-β^*\|_0\approx 0, and when n is below n^{*}, (2k)^{-1}\|β_{2}-β^*\|_0\approx 1, where β_2 is the optimal solution achieving the smallest squared error. With this we prove that n^{*} is the asymptotic threshold for recovering β^* information theoretically. b) We compute the squared error for an intermediate problem \min_β\|Y-Xβ\|_{2} where minimization is restricted to vectors βwith \|β-β^{*}\|_0=2k ζ, for ζ\in [0,1]. We show that a lower bound part Γ(ζ) of the estimate, which corresponds to the estimate based on the first moment method, undergoes a phase transition at three different thresholds, namely n_{\text{inf,1}}=σ^2\log p, which is information theoretic bound for recovering β^* when k=1 and σis large, then at n^{*} and finally at n_{\text{LASSO/CS}}. c) We establish a certain Overlap Gap Property (OGP) on the space of all binary vectors βwhen n\le ck\log p for sufficiently small constant c. We conjecture that OGP is the source of algorithmic hardness of solving the minimization problem \min_β\|Y-Xβ\|_{2} in the regime n<n_{\text{LASSO/CS}}.