In statistics, kernel-independent component analysis (kernel ICA) is an efficient algorithm for independent component analysis which estimates source components by optimizing a generalized variance contrast function, which is based on representations in a reproducing kernel Hilbert space.[1][2] Those contrast functions use the notion of mutual information as a measure of statistical independence.
Kernel ICA is based on the idea that correlations between two random variables can be represented in a reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS), denoted by
, associated with a feature map
defined for a fixed
. The
-correlation between two random variables
and
is defined as

where the functions
range over
and

for fixed
.[1] Note that the reproducing property implies that
for fixed
and
.[3] It follows then that the
-correlation between two independent random variables is zero.
This notion of
-correlations is used for defining contrast functions that are optimized in the Kernel ICA algorithm. Specifically, if
is a prewhitened data matrix, that is, the sample mean of each column is zero and the sample covariance of the rows is the
dimensional identity matrix, Kernel ICA estimates a
dimensional orthogonal matrix
so as to minimize finite-sample
-correlations between the columns of
.