Nonlinear Approximation Using Gaussian Kernels

It is well-known that non-linear approximation has an advantage over linear schemes in the sense that it provides comparable approximation rates to those of the linear schemes, but to a larger class of approximands. This was established for spline approximations and for wavelet approximations, and more recently for homogeneous radial basis function (surface spline) approximations. However, no such results are known for the Gaussian function. The crux of the difficulty lies in the necessity to vary the tension parameter in the Gaussian function spatially according to local information about the approximand: error analysis of Gaussian approximation schemes with varying tension are, by and large, an elusive target for approximators. We introduce and analyze in this paper a new algorithm for approximating functions using translates of Gaussian functions with varying tension parameters. Our scheme is sophisticated to a degree that it employs even locally Gaussians with varying tensions, and that it resolves local singularities in a non-local way. We show that our algorithm is suitably optimal in the sense that it provides approximation rates similar to other established nonlinear methodologies like spline and wavelet approximations. As expected and desired, the approximation rates can be as high as needed and are essentially saturated only by the smoothness of the approximand.