# Lasso equivalent estimator with differenziable penalty function

The lasso estimator is define as $argmin_{\beta}~ MSE +\lambda \parallel \beta\parallel_1$ I am wondering if there is an alternative penalty function that is $C^\infty$ and that preserves the sparsity of the lasso estimator.

• $C$ is the regularity. It means that the penalty function can be derived infinite time. mathworld.wolfram.com/C-InfinityFunction.html – Donbeo Oct 6 '14 at 14:41
• The problem is not the minimization. I want to train a neural network with the extreme learning machine method. In order to do that I need a $C^\infty$ functions on the nodes. And I want to use a lasso like function on the nodes. – Donbeo Oct 6 '14 at 16:57

Indeed, by the KKT conditions, we see that any $\hat\beta = \arg\min_\beta \mathrm{MSE} + \lambda \mathrm{pen}(\beta)$ maybe rewritten as $$\hat\beta = \arg\min_{\beta \, : \, \mathrm{pen}(\beta) \leq C} \mathrm{MSE}$$ for some constant $C$. (Note that this direction holds even if the penalty $\mathrm{pen}$ is nonconvex.) Since sparsity is induced by the level sets $\{\beta \, : \, \mathrm{pen}(\beta) = C\}$ having "corners" on the coordinate axes, all we need to do is determine whether a differentiable function can have "corners" in its level sets. However, by the implicit function theorem, we know that this isn't possible.