# Quantitative Universality of Approximate Message Passing for Rank-One Quadratic Sensing

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.05327 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.05327/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 3 of its 35 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 4 Oct 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [When does Gaussian equivalence fail and how to fix it: Non-universal behavior of random features with quadratic scaling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.03325/) (2025)
- [On Universality of Non-Separable Approximate Message Passing Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.23010/) (2025)
- [Universality of first-order methods on random and deterministic matrices](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.11729/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Approximate Message Passing (AMP) algorithms are attractive as they are computationally efficient and simultaneously admit a precise characterization in terms of the low-dimensional "state-evolution" recursion. In this work, we establish quantitative universality for AMP with centered rank-one sensing matrices Zi=(xixi^top-Id)/√ d, where xi are independent standard Gaussian vectors. These matrices arise in quadratic regression and learning quadratic neural networks. Their normalized vectorizations have isotropic covariance in dimension p=d(d+1)/2, but strongly dependent coordinates. For linear observations with Gaussian noise and prescribed smooth, bounded spectral denoisers, we compare rank-one sensing with a covariance-matched isotropic Gaussian ensemble. At a fixed iteration horizon, with n≤ Cp and uniform bounds on the normalized signal energy, initialization, coefficients, and first four denoiser derivatives, normalized signal overlaps, cross-time overlaps, and smooth linear spectral statistics differ by O(d-1/2) in every fixed Lm. This yields universality of the normalized mean-squared error, fixed spectral moments, and empirical spectral distributions. Whenever the Gaussian observables admit a joint state-evolution limit, the same predictions hold under rank-one sensing. The proof uses columnwise Lindeberg replacement, leave-one-out analysis, smooth spectral expansions, and high-moment concentration. For prescribed smooth spectral denoisers, the result establishes the AMP universality conjectured by Maillard et al. (arXiv:2408.03733).