Cubic Regularized Newton Method with Variance Reduction for Finite-sum Non-convex Problems

Abstract

We study finite-sum non-convex optimization $\min_{x\in\mathbb{R}^d} F(x) \;=\; \frac{1}{n}\sum_{i=1}^n f_i(x)$ and analyze a variance-reduced cubic Newton method based on EMA-smoothed SARAH estimators for both gradient and Hessian information. The method combines a coarse stochastic backbone with a terminal homotopy refinement: once the iterates enter a certified small-step regime, the algorithm decreases the regularization level geometrically, shortens the stage length, and increases the mini-batch size at the reciprocal rate while restarting exact finite-sum snapshots at each stage. We work under average squared gradient smoothness and average mean-cubed Hessian smoothness, thereby avoiding the trajectory-wise Hessian boundedness assumption that is often used in related analyses. Under these assumptions and a standard inexact cubic-subproblem certificate, we establish that the method returns an $(\varepsilon,\sqrt{L_2\varepsilon})$-second-order stationary point with total finite-sum oracle complexity $n+\widetilde{\mathcal O}\!\left(n^{1/2}\varepsilon^{-3/2}\right)$. The analysis separates into a coarse progress phase, which yields the $n^{1/2}$-scaled stochastic backbone, and a terminal local bootstrap, which supplies the pointwise accuracy needed to turn the model step certificate into a true second-order certificate.