Simple bounds
HereA simple upper bound is \begin{equation*} \text{tr}(AB^{-1}) \le \min\left(\lambda_{\max}(A)\text{tr}(B^{-1}), \text{tr}(A)\lambda_{\max}(B^{-1})\right). \end{equation*} Both these bounds are numerically "easy" to compute using Lanczos. For computing $\text{tr}(B^{-1})$ a simple minded numerical approximationrandomized trace estimator can be used (ignoring roundoff etc) that works forfollowing the case that a factorization $A=UU^T$more general idea outlined below).
Numerical approximation
Here is known (ora simple approach, motivated by $A^{1/2}$ is available)this nice book:
- First compute $\alpha=\|B\|$ approximately using Lanczos
- Now consider $B=\alpha I - C$, so that $B^{-1}=(I-\alpha^{-1}C)^{-1}/\alpha$
- After that, consider \begin{equation*} \text{tr}(AB^{-1}) = \frac1\alpha\text{tr}(A^{1/2}(I-\alpha^{-1}C)^{-1}A^{1/2}) \end{equation*}
- Now use the von Neumann series \begin{equation*} \text{tr}(A(I-\alpha^{-1}C)^{-1})=\sum_{k\ge0} (-1)^k\alpha^{-k}\text{tr}(A^{1/2}C^kA^{1/2}) \end{equation*}
- Let $u$$u \sim \mathcal{N}(0,I)$ be a mean-zero spherical Gaussian rv. Then, we approximate the above quantity by taking $m$ samples, $u_1,\ldots,u_m$ and iteratively computing $u_i^TA^{1/2}C^kA^{1/2}u_i$ for $1\le i \le m$. Observe that the key subroutine that we have is to iteratively compute $z^TC^kz = z^TC(C^{k-1}z)$.
- In expectation this will be an estimator for the trace in question since $E[\text{tr}(u^TA^{1/2}C^kA^{1/2}u]=E[\text{tr}(A^{1/2}C^kA^{1/2}uu^T)]$ and $E[uu^T]=I$ by assumption.
If you do not have access to $A^{1/2}$ of $A=UU^T$,(or a Cholesky factorization of it) then some more thought is needed. Yet anotheran additional level of approximation is added if we buildarises by building a subroutine to compute $A^{1/2}u$. Such --- such$f(A)b)$ family of subroutines are the subject of intense studyresearch interest in numerical linear algebra (see e.g., Nick Higham's webpage).
EDIT. Here is a rough upper-bound, not sure if it suffices. Recall that \begin{equation*} \text{tr}(AB^{-1}) \le \langle \lambda(A), \lambda(B^{-1}) \rangle. \end{equation*} The right hand side above can be bounded using Hölder's inequality to make it easier to compute, for instance by $\lambda_{\max}(A)\text{tr}(B^{-1})$, which in turn can be easily computed using the above ideas. Alternatively, we can upper bound it using $\text{tr}(A)\lambda_{\max}(B^{-1})$, which requires computing the smallest eigenvalue of $B$, again Lanczos will help. This particular bound is much easier to obtain using existing tools in Matlab and his book on (see 'eigs'Functions of Matrices for further information).