A Fresh Variational-Analysis Look at the Positive Semidefinite Matrices World

International audienceEngineering sciences and applications of mathematics show unambiguously that positive semidefiniteness of matrices is the most important generalization of non-negative real num- bers. This notion of non-negativity for matrices has been well-studied in the literature; it has been the subject of review papers and entire chapters of books. This paper reviews some of the nice, useful properties of positive (semi)definite matrices, and insists in particular on (i) characterizations of positive (semi)definiteness and (ii) the geometrical properties of the set of positive semidefinite matrices. Some properties that turn out to be less well-known have here a special treatment. The use of these properties in optimization, as well as various references to applications, are spread all the way through. The "raison d'être" of this paper is essentially pedagogical; it adopts the viewpoint of variational analysis, shedding new light on the topic. Important, fruitful, and subtle, the positive semidefinite world is a good place to start with this domain of applied mathematics

Regularized Lagrangian duality for linearly constrained quadratic optimization and trust-region problems

Quadratic nonconvex optimization, Regularized Lagrangian, Strong duality, Quadratic constraints, Linear equality constraints, Trust-region problems, Alternative theorems, 90C26, 90C46, 90C20, 90C30,

Numerical Methods for Large-Scale Non-Convex Quadratic Programming

We consider numerical methods for finding (weak) second-order critical points for large-scale non-convex quadratic programming problems. We describe two new methods. The first is of the active-set variety. Although convergent from any starting point, it is intended primarily for the case where a good estimate of the optimal active set can be predicted. The second is an interior-point trust-region type, and has proved capable of solving problems involving up to half a million unknowns and constraints. The solution of a key equality constrained subproblem, common to both methods, is described. The results of comparative tests on a large set of convex and non-convex quadratic programming examples are given