Algorithms for $\ell_p$-based semi-supervised learning on graphs

We develop fast algorithms for solving the variational and game-theoretic $p$-Laplace equations on weighted graphs for $p>2$. The graph $p$-Laplacian for $p>2$ has been proposed recently as a replacement for the standard ($p=2$) graph Laplacian in semi-supervised learning problems with very few labels, where the minimizer of the graph Laplacian becomes degenerate. We present several efficient and scalable algorithms for both the variational and game-theoretic formulations, and present numerical results on synthetic data and real data that illustrate the effectiveness of the $p$-Laplacian formulation for semi-supervised learning with few labels. We also prove new discrete to continuum convergence results for $p$-Laplace problems on $k$-nearest neighbor ($k$-NN) graphs, which are more commonly used in practice than random geometric graphs. Our analysis shows that, on $k$-NN graphs, the $p$-Laplacian retains information about the data distribution as $p\to \infty$ and Lipschitz learning ($p=\infty$) is sensitive to the data distribution. This situation can be contrasted with random geometric graphs, where the $p$-Laplacian \emph{forgets} the data distribution as $p\to \infty$. Finally, we give a general framework for proving discrete to continuum convergence results in graph-based learning that only requires pointwise consistency and a type of monotonicity.