Quadratic norm penalty ($\alpha \Vert x{\Vert }^2$)

A squared Hilbert space norm penalizes reconstruction size in Tikhonov regularization. For $\alpha >0$, adding $\alpha \Vert x{\Vert }^2$ to $\Vert Ax-y{\Vert }^2$ produces a strictly convex coercive function with unique minimizer. Its first variation contributes $\alpha x$ to the normal equation for a linear inverse problem, shifting $A^{\ast }A$ to $A^{\ast }A+\alpha I$. It selects a minimum-norm representative and controls amplification of noisy small-singular-value components.