Approximation rates for finite mixtures of location-scale models and fast least-squares estimators

TL;DR

This paper investigates approximation and estimation rates for finite mixtures of location-scale models, providing explicit bounds and analyzing least-squares estimators under various kernel conditions.

Contribution

It offers new deterministic quantisation results and matches minimax rates for least-squares estimators in Sobolev classes, including Gaussian and Student-$t$ mixtures.

Findings

Approximation rates in Sobolev spaces are established.

Least-squares estimators achieve near-optimal risk bounds.

Matching lower bounds are proved for Gaussian and Student-$t$ mixture models.

Abstract

Finite mixture models provide a flexible framework for approximating and estimating multivariate probability densities. We study mixtures formed from translated and rescaled copies of a fixed density kernel and obtain explicit results for both approximation and least-squares estimation. Our main deterministic result is a quantisation theorem showing that, after smoothing the target density at a fixed resolution, the resulting convolution can be compressed into a finite location mixture with controlled error. Combining this with the smoothing bias yields approximation rates in $\mathcal{L}_{p}$ over Sobolev classes. For estimation, we analyse least-squares $\varepsilon$-minimisers over suitably tuned mixture sieves. Under exponential decay of the Fourier transform of the kernel, a matching moment condition, and bounded Sobolev targets, the estimator attains a squared $\mathcal{L}_{2}$ risk bound whose rate matches the Sobolev minimax benchmark up to a logarithmic factor. If, in addition, the kernel is bandlimited, then the same theorem recovers the Sobolev rate $n^{-2s/\left(2s+d\right)}$. We further report a slower convergence rate under weaker VC-type assumptions. At fixed scale, the Fourier-based approach also gives a nearly parametric risk bound for the associated location-mixture class, and the same bandlimited simplification removes the logarithmic correction. In the Gaussian case, this recovers the known Gaussian location-mixture rate. We also prove matching lower bounds on Gaussian convolution submodels, including strict submodels of the Gaussian location-mixture class, and on the tensor-product odd-degree Student-$t$ location-mixture family.