Bregman distances and Chebyshev sets (Q1029105)

Let \(\mathbb{R}^J\) denotes the standard Euclidean space with inner product \(\langle\cdot,\cdot\rangle\) and induced norm \(\|\cdot\|\). Let \(C\) be a nonempty closed subset of \(\mathbb{R}^J\). If each \(x\in \mathbb{R}^J\) has a unique nearest point in \(C\), the set \(C\) is said to be Chebyshev. The famous Chebyshev set problem inquires: ``Is a Chebyshev set necessarily convex?'' The authors look at the problem from the more general point of view of Bregman distances defined as under: Let \(f:\mathbb{R}^J\to [-\infty,+\infty]\) be convex and differentiable on \(U:=\) interior domain \(f\neq\emptyset\). The Bregman distance associated with \(f\) is defined by \[ D: \mathbb{R}^J\times \mathbb{R}^J\to [0,+\infty],\quad D(x,y)=\begin{cases} f(x)- f(y)-\langle\nabla f(y),x-y\rangle,\;&\text{if }x\in U,\\ +\infty,\;&\text{otherwise}.\end{cases} \] They show that if every point in the space has a unique nearest point in a closed set, then the set is convex. The authors provide two approaches: one by nonsmooth analysis; the other by maximal monotone operator theory. Subdifferentiability properties of Bregman nearest distance function are also given in the paper.