[Math] Minimize $\|A-XB\|_F$ subject to $Xv=0$

convex optimizationleast squaresmatricesquadratic programmingreference-request

Assume we are given two matrices $A, B \in \mathbb R^{n \times m}$ and a vector $v \in \mathbb R^n$. Let $\|\cdot\|_F$ be the Frobenius norm of a matrix. How can we solve the following optimization problem in $X \in \mathbb R^{n \times n}$?

$$\begin{array}{ll} \text{minimize} & \|A-XB\|_F\\ \text{subject to} & Xv=0\end{array}$$

Can this problem be converted to a constrained least squares problem with the optimization variable being a vector instead of a matrix? If so, does this way work?

Are there some references about solving such constrained linear least Frobenius norm problems?

Thanks!

Best Answer

As the others show, the answer to your question is affirmative. However, I don't see what's the point of doing so, when the problem can actually be converted into an unconstrained least square problem.

Let $Q$ be a real orthogonal matrix that has $\frac{v}{\|v\|}$ as its last column. For instance, you may take $Q$ as a Householder matrix: $$ Q = I - 2uu^T,\ u = \frac{v-\|v\|e_n}{\|v-\|v\|e_n\|}, \ e_n=(0,0,\ldots,0,1)^T. $$ Then $Xv=0$ means that $XQe_n=0$, which in turn implies that $XQ$ is a matrix of the form $XQ = (\widetilde{X},0)$, where $\widetilde{X}\in\mathbb{R}^{n\times(n-1)}$. So, if you partition $Q^TB$ as $Q^TB = \pmatrix{\widetilde{B}\\ \ast}$, where $\widetilde{B}$ is $(n-1)\times m$, then your minimisation problem can be rewritten as the unconstrained least-square problem $$\min_{\widetilde{X}\in\mathbb{R}^{n\times(n-1)}} \|A-\widetilde{X}\widetilde{B}\|_F.$$ And the least-norm solution is given by $\widetilde{X} = A\widetilde{B}^+$, where $\widetilde{B}^+$ denotes the Moore-Penrose pseudoinverse of $\widetilde{B}$. Once $\widetilde{X}$ is obtained, you can recover $X = (\widetilde{X},0)Q^T$.

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