Exact augmented Lagrangian functions for nonlinear semidefinite programming

In this paper, we study augmented Lagrangian functions for nonlinear semidefinite programming (NSDP) problems with exactness properties. The term exact is used in the sense that the penalty parameter can be taken appropriately, so a single minimization of the augmented Lagrangian recovers a solution of the original problem. This leads to reformulations of NSDP problems … Read more

Polynomial Norms

In this paper, we study polynomial norms, i.e. norms that are the dth root of a degree-d homogeneous polynomial f. We first show that a necessary and sufficient condition for f^(1/d) to be a norm is for f to be strictly convex, or equivalently, convex and positive definite. Though not all norms come from dth … Read more

The Many Faces of Degeneracy in Conic Optimization

Slater’s condition — existence of a “strictly feasible solution” — is a common assumption in conic optimization. Without strict feasibility, first-order optimality conditions may be meaningless, the dual problem may yield little information about the primal, and small changes in the data may render the problem infeasible. Hence, failure of strict feasibility can negatively impact … Read more

Warm-start of interior point methods for second order cone optimization via rounding over optimal Jordan frames

Interior point methods (IPM) are the most popular approaches to solve Second Order Cone Optimization (SOCO) problems, due to their theoretical polynomial complexity and practical performance. In this paper, we present a warm-start method for primal-dual IPMs to reduce the number of IPM steps needed to solve SOCO problems that appear in a Branch and … Read more

Facially dual complete (nice) cones and lexicographic tangents

We study the boundary structure of closed convex cones, with a focus on facially dual complete (nice) cones. These cones form a proper subset of facially exposed convex cones, and they behave well in the context of duality theory for convex optimization. Using the well-known and very commonly used concept of tangent cones in nonlinear … Read more

From Data to Decisions: Distributionally Robust Optimization is Optimal

We study stochastic programs where the decision-maker cannot observe the distribution of the exogenous uncertainties but has access to a finite set of independent samples from this distribution. In this setting, the goal is to find a procedure that transforms the data to an estimate of the expected cost function under the unknown data-generating distribution, … Read more

Randomized Linear Programming Solves the Discounted Markov Decision Problem In Nearly-Linear (Sometimes Sublinear) Running Time

We propose a randomized linear programming algorithm for approximating the optimal policy of the discounted Markov decision problem. By leveraging the value-policy duality, the algorithm adaptively samples state transitions and makes exponentiated primal-dual updates. We show that it finds an ε-optimal policy using nearly-linear running time in the worst case. For Markov decision processes that … Read more

Plea for a semidefinite optimization solver in complex numbers

Numerical optimization in complex numbers has drawn much less attention than in real numbers. A widespread opinion is that, since a complex number is a pair of real numbers, the best strategy to solve a complex optimization problem is to transform it into real numbers and to solve the latter by a real number solver. … Read more

D-OPTIMAL DESIGN FOR MULTIVARIATE POLYNOMIAL REGRESSION VIA THE CHRISTOFFEL FUNCTION AND SEMIDEFINITE RELAXATIONS

We present a new approach to the design of D-optimal experiments with multivariate polynomial regressions on compact semi-algebraic design spaces. We apply the moment-sum-of-squares hierarchy of semidefinite programming problems to solve numerically and approximately the optimal design problem. The geometry of the design is recovered with semidefinite programming duality theory and the Christoffel polynomial. ArticleDownload … Read more

Lyapunov rank of polyhedral positive operators

If K is a closed convex cone and if L is a linear operator having L(K) a subset of K, then L is a positive operator on K and L preserves inequality with respect to K. The set of all positive operators on K is denoted by pi(K). If J is the dual of K, … Read more