Superquadratic functions in several variables (Q860680): Difference between revisions

Following a previous study for functions of one variable the authors introduce the notion of a superquadratic function \( f \) of several variables. The requirement is the existence of a vector-valued function \( c(x) \) in the domain of \( f \) such that the inequality \[ f(y)\geq f(x)+(c(x)\mid y-x) + f(| y-x| ) \] holds, where \( | y-x| =(| y_1-x_1| ,\dots,| y_m-x_m| ). \) If \( f \) is nonnegative this condition implies convexity of \( f, \) while the situation is more subtle in general. The paper studies these functions and gives in particular a version of Jensen's inequality for superquadratic functions.