We show that unless P=NP, there exists no polynomial time (or even pseudo-polynomial time) algorithm that can decide whether a multivariate polynomial of degree four (or higher even degree) is globally convex. This solves a problem that has been open since 1992 when N. Z. Shor asked for the complexity of deciding convexity for quartic … Read more
This paper explores equivalent, reduced size Reformulation-Linearization Technique (RLT)-based formulations for polynomial programming problems. Utilizing a basis partitioning scheme for an embedded linear equality subsystem, we show that a strict subset of RLT defining equalities imply the remaining ones. Applying this result, we derive significantly reduced RLT representations and develop certain coherent associated branching rules … Read more
In this paper we consider the problem of computing the value and a supporting hyperplane of the convex envelope for quadratic and polynomial functions over polytopes with known vertex set. We show that for general quadratic functions the computation can be carried on through a copositive problem, but in some cases (including all the two-dimensional … Read more
We present a modification of the DIRECT algorithm, called DIRECT-G, to solve a box-constrained global optimization problem arising in the detection of gravitational waves emitted by coalescing binary systems of compact objects. This is a hard problem since the objective function is highly nonlinear and expensive to evaluate, has a huge number of local extrema … Read more
The inertia of a Hermitian matrix is defined to be a triplet composed by the numbers of the positive, negative and zero eigenvalues of the matrix counted with multiplicities, respectively. In this paper, we give various closed-form formulas for the maximal and minimal values for the rank and inertia of the Hermitian expression $A + … Read more
Identifying and exploiting classes of nonconvex constraints whose feasible region is convex after branching can reduce the time to compute global solutions for nonlinear optimization problems. We develop techniques for identifying quadratic and nonlinear constraints whose feasible region can be represented as the union of a finite number of second-order cones, and we provide necessary … Read more
Research in optimization algorithm design is often accompanied by benchmarking a new al- gorithm. Some benchmarking is done as a proof-of-concept, by demonstrating the new algorithm works on a small number of dicult test problems. Alternately, some benchmarking is done in order to demonstrate that the new algorithm in someway out-performs previous methods. In this … Read more
We define the inclusion certificate as a measure that expresses each point in the domain of a collection of functions as a convex combination of other points in the domain. Using inclusion certificates, we extend the convex extensions theory to enable simultaneous convexification of functions. We discuss conditions under which the domain of the functions … Read more
We investigate in this paper a fixed parameter polynomial algorithm for the cardinality constrained quadratic optimization problem, which is NP-hard in general. More specifically, we prove that, given a problem of size $n$, the number of decision variables, and $s$, the cardinality, if, for some $0
We study approaches for obtaining convex relaxations of global optimization problems containing multilinear functions. Specifically, we compare the concave and convex envelopes of these functions with the relaxations that are obtained with a standard relaxation approach, due to McCormick. The standard approach reformulates the problem to contain only bilinear terms and then relaxes each term … Read more