For and , profiling the dense coefficient gives . The sparse coefficient minimizes . The transformation uses the principal square root of a positive semidefinite matrix and remains valid for rank-deficient designs.
Use the convention that ridge regression minimizes . Its closed-form ridge regression estimator is
The factors and here specify the tuning convention. No intercept is needed for the centred responses and predictors.
For the two-component procedure, fix and put . Differentiating the objective with respect to its dense coefficient gives
Thus, with ,
The inverse exists because , even for a rank-deficient design. The sum of the fitted sparse and dense components is the Lava estimator.
Multiplying by and completing the square gives the exact profile calculation
Let . A singular value decomposition of shows that its eigenvalues are in nonzero singular directions and one in the orthogonal complement. Hence is a positive-definite matrix. Take its symmetric principal square root of a positive semidefinite matrix, . Profiling out therefore yields the Lasso reduction for the Lava estimator:
No restandardization of is needed: this is the exact transformed objective with its original penalty.
Write , , and . Then . Comparing the transformed Lasso objective at and gives the Basic inequality for the Lasso
On , Holder inequality bounds the score by . Using cancels the fitted penalty and yields the slow-rate prediction bound for the Lasso:
Finally, if , then , so
Consequently
Positive actually guarantees for every finite design; the factor measures how much prediction norm the profiling transformation can remove.
By the real spectral theorem, a real symmetric matrix has an orthogonal diagonalization
Writing gives
This is nonnegative for every exactly when every . Thus the quadratic-form and eigenvalue definitions of a positive semidefinite matrix agree.
When is positive semidefinite, define
This matrix is symmetric and positive semidefinite, and its square is , so it is the principal square root of a positive semidefinite matrix.
For nonsingular , the matrix is symmetric and
for every nonzero . Thus is positive definite, and
exists and is nonsingular. Let . Since is symmetric,
Hence is an orthogonal matrix and
the polar decomposition of an invertible real matrix.
In three dimensions, stretches or contracts along three mutually perpendicular eigenvector directions by its positive eigenvalues. The orthogonal map is then applied: it is a rotation when , and a rotation combined with a reflection when .
Zero quadratic form of a positive semidefinite matrix Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-06
If is a real positive semidefinite matrix, then if and only if . Indeed by the principal square root of a positive semidefinite matrix, so a zero quadratic form puts in the kernel of and hence of .