Locally connected sets and functions (Q1117048)

A set \(C\subset {\mathbb{R}}^ n\) is said to be locally connected (LC) if for each pair of points \(x^ 1,x^ 2\in C\) there exist a maximum positive number \(a(x^ 1,x^ 2)\leq 1\) and a function \(H_{x^ 1,x^ 2}:\quad [0,1]\to {\mathbb{R}}^ n\) such that \[ H_{x^ 1,x^ 2}(0)=x^ 1,\quad H_{x^ 1,x^ 2}(1)=x^ 2,\quad H_{x^ 1,x^ 2}(\lambda)\in C \] for \(0<\lambda <a(x^ 1,x^ 2)\), and \(H_{x^ 1,x^ 2}\) is continuous on \(]0,a(x^ 1,x^ 2)[.\) A real-valued function f defied on a LC set \(C\subset {\mathbb{R}}^ n\) is said to be locally connected (LCN) if for each pair of points \(x^ 1,x^ 2\in C\) (with the corresponding function \(H_{x^ 1,x^ 2}\) and a maximum positive number \(a(x^ 1,x^ 2)\) satisfying the required conditions) there exists a positive number \(d(x^ 1,x^ 2)\leq a(x^ 1,x^ 2)\) such that \[ f(H_{x^ 1,x^ 2}(\lambda))\leq (1-\lambda)f(x^ 1)+\lambda f(x^ 2) \] whenever \(0<\lambda <d(x^ 1,x^ 2)\). Similarly, locally Q-connected (LQCN), strictly locally Q-connected (SLQCN), and strongly locally Q-connected (STLQCN) functions are introduced. It is proved that for a real-valued function f defined on a LC set \(C\subset {\mathbb{R}}^ n\) the following properties hold: (1) if f is LCN or SLQCN and \(x^*\) is a local minimum of f, then \(x^*\) is a global minimum of f on C; (2) if f is LQCN and \(x^*\) is a strict local minimum of f, then \(x^*\) is a strict global minimum of f on C; (3) if f is STLQCN and \(x^*\) is a local minimum of f, then \(x^*\) is the unique global minimum of f on C.