On two ways to use determinantal point processes for Monte Carlo integration

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Authors: Guillaume Gautier, Rémi Bardenet, Michal Valko
Cited by: 13
References: 28

Abstract

The standard Monte Carlo estimator $\widehat{I}_N^{\mathrm{MC}}$ of $\int fdω$ relies on independent samples from $ω$ and has variance of order $1/N$. Replacing the samples with a determinantal point process (DPP), a repulsive distribution, makes the estimator consistent, with variance rates that depend on how the DPP is adapted to $f$ and $ω$. We examine two existing DPP-based estimators: one by Bardenet & Hardy (2020) with a rate of $\mathcal{O}(N^{-(1+1/d)})$ for smooth $f$, but relying on a fixed DPP. The other, by Ermakov & Zolotukhin (1960), is unbiased with rate of order $1/N$, like Monte Carlo, but its DPP is tailored to $f$. We revisit these estimators, generalize them to continuous settings, and provide sampling algorithms.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Gaussian Processes and Bayesian Inference Statistical Methods and Bayesian Inference Statistical Methods and Inference

Publication details

Journal / source
arXiv (Cornell University)
Publication date
21 April 2026
Language
EN
Document type
Preprint