Distance preserving model order reduction of graph-Laplacians and cluster analysis

Graph-Laplacians and their spectral embeddings play an important role in multiple areas of machine learning. This paper is focused on graph-Laplacian dimension reduction for the spectral clustering of data as a primary application. Spectral embedding provides a low-dimensional parametrization of the data manifold which makes the subsequent task (e.g., clustering) much easier. However, despite reducing the dimensionality of data, the overall computational cost may still be prohibitive for large data sets due to two factors. First, computing the partial eigendecomposition of the graph-Laplacian typically requires a large Krylov subspace. Second, after the spectral embedding is complete, one still has to operate with the same number of data points. For example, clustering of the embedded data is typically performed with various relaxations of k-means which computational cost scales poorly with respect to the size of data set. In this work, we switch the focus from the entire data set to a subset of graph vertices (target subset). We develop two novel algorithms for such low-dimensional representation of the original graph that preserves important global distances between the nodes of the target subset. In particular, it allows to ensure that target subset clustering is consistent with the spectral clustering of the full data set if one would perform such. That is achieved by a properly parametrized reduced-order model (ROM) of the graph-Laplacian that approximates accurately the diffusion transfer function of the original graph for inputs and outputs restricted to the target subset. Working with a small target subset reduces greatly the required dimension of Krylov subspace and allows to exploit the conventional algorithms (like approximations of k-means) in the regimes when they are most robust and efficient.