Hessian spectrum at the global minimum of high-dimensional random landscapes

TL;DR

This paper calculates the Hessian spectral density at the global minimum of high-dimensional Gaussian landscapes, revealing how the spectral gap behaves near phase transitions and differs across landscape complexities.

Contribution

It provides an analytical calculation of the Hessian spectrum in various landscape regimes, highlighting the gap behavior and the effects of replica symmetry breaking.

Findings

Hessian spectrum is gapped in simple landscapes with a positive spectral edge.

Spectral gap vanishes as $(-_c)^2$ near the transition point.

In highly complex landscapes, the Hessian remains gapless, indicating marginal stability.

Abstract

Using the replica method we calculate the mean spectral density of the Hessian matrix at the global minimum of a random $N \gg 1$ dimensional isotropic, translationally invariant Gaussian random landscape confined by a parabolic potential with fixed curvature $\mu>0$. Simple landscapes with generically a single minimum are typical for $\mu>\mu_{c}$, and we show that the Hessian at the global minimum is always {\it gapped}, with the low spectral edge being strictly positive. When approaching from above the transitional point $\mu= \mu_{c}$ separating simple landscapes from 'glassy' ones, with exponentially abundant minima, the spectral gap vanishes as $(\mu-\mu_c)^2$. For $\mu<\mu_c$ the Hessian spectrum is qualitatively different for 'moderately complex' and 'genuinely complex' landscapes. The former are typical for short-range correlated random potentials and correspond to 1-step replica-symmetry breaking mechanism. Their Hessian spectra turn out to be again gapped, with the gap vanishing on approaching $\mu_c$ from below with a larger critical exponent, as $(\mu_c-\mu)^4$. At the same time in the 'most complex' landscapes with long-ranged power-law correlations the replica symmetry is completely broken. We show that in that case the Hessian remains gapless for all values of $\mu<\mu_c$, indicating the presence of 'marginally stable' spatial directions. Finally, the potentials with {\it logarithmic} correlations share both 1RSB nature and gapless spectrum. The spectral density of the Hessian always takes the semi-circular form, up to a shift and an amplitude that we explicitly calculate.