Applications of convex analysis within mathematics (Q484128): Difference between revisions

This survey paper is an excellent plea for convex analysis and its theoretical applications, which goes beyond the declared intention of illustrating the power and range of the ideas of Jean-Jacques Moreau and his followers. It may even serve as a basis for an advanced course on convex analysis and its applications. An important feature of this paper is that several results from other fields are introduced or proven by means of convex analysis, stressing the fact that ``convex functions are everywhere''. After reviewing some basic tools and results of convex analysis, several applications of them to optimization, geometry and analysis are presented. It is interesting that not only known results are mentioned, but also some not widely/yet known connections as well as some conjectures, for which it is believed that convex analysis may provide relevant advances. A short section is dedicated to best approximation problems treated by means of convex analysis and it is followed by one where such tools are employed for approaching different issues regarding monotone operators and their maximality. For instance, the Minty surjectivity theorem in Hilbert spaces is recovered in this way. Special attention is given to a new proof of the famous sum theorem in reflexive Banach spaces and to autoconjugate representers for maximally monotone operators. The fifth section is dedicated to various other applications of the convex analysis in mathematical analysis, proximal theory, symbolic convex analysis and partial fractions. Worth noticing is also the laborious bibliographical work of the authors who bring to light some not quite widely known historical facts regarding convex analysis.