Convexifying positive polynomials and sums of squares approximation

Publication date 11 December 2015

Abstract: We show that if a polynomial

f i n m a t h b b R [x_{1}, l d o t s, x_{n}]

is nonnegative on a closed basic semialgebraic set

X = x i n m a t h b b R^{n} : g_{1} (x) g e 0, l d o t s, g_{r} (x) g e 0

, where

g_{1}, l d o t s, g_{r} i n m a t h b b R [x_{1}, l d o t s, x_{n}]

, then

f

can be approximated uniformly on compact sets by polynomials of the form

s i g m a_{0} + v a r p h i (g_{1}) g_{1} + c d o t s + v a r p h i (g_{r}) g_{r}

, where

s i g m a_{0} i n m a t h b b R [x_{1}, l d o t s, x_{n}]

and

v a r p h i i n m a t h b b R [t]

are sums of squares of polynomials. In particular, if

X

is compact, and

h (x) := R^{2} - | x |^{2}

is positive on

X

, then

f = s i g m a_{0} + s i g m a_{1} h + v a r p h i (g_{1}) g_{1} + c d o t s + v a r p h i (g_{r}) g_{r}

for some sums of squares

s i g m a_{0}, s i g m a_{1} i n m a t h b b R [x_{1}, l d o t s, x_{n}]

and

v a r p h i i n m a t h b b R [t]

, where

| x |^{2} = x_{1}^{2} + c d o t s + x_{n}^{2}

. We apply a quantitative version of those results to semidefinite optimization methods. Let

X

be a convex closed semialgebraic subset of

m a t h b b R^{n}

and let

f

be a polynomial which is positive on

X

. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of an exponent

N i n m a t h b b N

such that

(1 + | x |^{2})^{N} f (x)

is a convex function on

X

. We apply this result to searching for lower critical points of polynomials on convex compact semialgebraic sets.

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