  We consider optimization problems over the Stiefel manifold whose objective
function is the summation of a smooth function and a nonsmooth function.
Existing methods for solving this kind of problems can be classified into three
classes. Algorithms in the first class rely on information of the subgradients
of the objective function and thus tend to converge slowly in practice.
Algorithms in the second class are proximal point algorithms, which involve
subproblems that can be as difficult as the original problem. Algorithms in the
third class are based on operator-splitting techniques, but they usually lack
rigorous convergence guarantees. In this paper, we propose a retraction-based
proximal gradient method for solving this class of problems. We prove that the
proposed method globally converges to a stationary point. Iteration complexity
for obtaining an $\epsilon$-stationary solution is also analyzed. Numerical
results on solving sparse PCA and compressed modes problems are reported to
demonstrate the advantages of the proposed method.
