May 18 – 22, 2026
Virginia Tech
America/New_York timezone

Column subset selection: A new perspective

May 18, 2026, 3:45 PM
25m
Torgersen Hall 3100

Torgersen Hall 3100

Minisymposium Talk New Directions and Challenges in Linear Algebra New Directions and Challenges in Linear Algebra

Speaker

Ilse Ipsen (North Carolina State University)

Description

It is well known that the problem of selecting k columns with maximal volume from a real matrix is NP-hard, and does not admit a polynomial time approximation scheme. However, one can show that the logarithm of the volume is a "submodular" function. Intuitively, this means: Adding a new column to a larger submatrix tends to be less beneficial than adding it to a smaller submatrix.

If subset selection for maximizing the logarithmic volume is implemented via QR with column pivoting, we show that: The Businger Golub algorithm is a greedy algorithm with relative error at most .37, while the Gu-Eisenstat algorithm is a 1-interchange algorithm with relative error at most .5

Author

Ilse Ipsen (North Carolina State University)

Co-author

Arvind Saibaba (North Carolina State University)

Presentation materials

There are no materials yet.