Phase retrieval using iterative projections: Dynamics in the large systems limit

We study phase retrieval by using a simple non-convex algorithm based on iterative projections. Our main contribution in this work is to establish an exact analysis of the dynamics of the algorithm in an online setting, with Gaussian measurement vectors. We show that the algorithm dynamics, measured by the squared distance between the current estimate and the true solution, can be fully characterized by a 2D Markov process, irrespective of the underlying signal dimension. Furthermore, in the large systems limit (i.e., as the signal dimension tends to infinity), the random sample paths of the 2D Markov process converge to the solutions of two deterministic and coupled ordinary differential equations (ODEs). Numerical simulations verify the accuracy of our analytical predictions, even for moderate system sizes. This suggests that the ODE approach presented in this work provides an effective tool for analyzing the performance and convergence of the algorithm.