Demixing Sparse Signals from Nonlinear Observations using Generalized Non-convex Regularization

Abstract

We consider the recovery of a pair of sparse vectors from a limited number of nonlinear observations of their superposition: $y_i=g(\inner{\ba_i}{\bPhi\bw^\ast+\bPsi\bz^\ast})+e_i$, $i=1,\dots,m$, with $m\ll n$, incoherent orthonormal bases $\bPhi,\bPsi$, a scalar link $g$, and noise $e_i$ that may be heavy-tailed or contaminated. We propose a regularization-based framework combining a Huberized data fidelity with generalized folded-concave penalties (SCAD, MCP), and a two-block proximal alternating algorithm with backtracking (NLD-PALM) whose whole iterate sequence provably converges to critical points under the Kurdyka--\L{}ojasiewicz property, with local linear rates. On the statistical side we establish restricted strong convexity of the Huberized nonlinear loss through an exact sign-definite decomposition, and derive estimation error bounds of order $\sigma\sqrt{s\log(n)/m}$ that hold at \emph{every} localized stationary point, an oracle rate $\sigma\sqrt{s/m}$ free of $\log n$ and shrinkage bias under a beta-min condition, and a co-equal recovery theorem for \emph{unknown} monotone links via a linear surrogate and a clipped Plan--Vershynin decoupling. The estimator requires no knowledge of the sparsity levels, and its guarantees hold under symmetric noise with only finite variance. Experiments at $n=512$ under a frozen data-driven regularization rule show an earlier phase transition than convex $\ell_1$ demixing and greedy hard-thresholding baselines, a $35\times$ accuracy advantage over squared-loss estimation under $5\%$ gross outliers, and successful demixing of spike-plus-background signals observed through a saturating amplifier.