On the complexity of testing attainment of the optimal value in nonlinear optimization

We prove that unless P = NP , there exists no polynomial time (or even pseudo-polynomial time) algorithm that can test whether the optimal value of a nonlinear optimization problem where the objective and constraints are given by low-degree polynomials is attained. If the degrees of these polynomial...

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Veröffentlicht in:Mathematical programming Jg. 184; H. 1-2; S. 221 - 241
Hauptverfasser: Ahmadi, Amir Ali, Zhang, Jeffrey
Format: Journal Article
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.11.2020
Springer Nature B.V
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ISSN:0025-5610, 1436-4646
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Zusammenfassung:We prove that unless P = NP , there exists no polynomial time (or even pseudo-polynomial time) algorithm that can test whether the optimal value of a nonlinear optimization problem where the objective and constraints are given by low-degree polynomials is attained. If the degrees of these polynomials are fixed, our results along with previously-known “Frank–Wolfe type” theorems imply that exactly one of two cases can occur: either the optimal value is attained on every instance, or it is strongly NP-hard to distinguish attainment from non-attainment. We also show that testing for some well-known sufficient conditions for attainment of the optimal value, such as coercivity of the objective function and closedness and boundedness of the feasible set, is strongly NP-hard. As a byproduct, our proofs imply that testing the Archimedean property of a quadratic module is strongly NP-hard, a property that is of independent interest to the convergence of the Lasserre hierarchy. Finally, we give semidefinite programming (SDP)-based sufficient conditions for attainment of the optimal value, in particular a new characterization of coercive polynomials that lends itself to an SDP hierarchy.
Bibliographie:ObjectType-Article-1
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ISSN:0025-5610
1436-4646
DOI:10.1007/s10107-019-01411-1