Detecting fixed points of nonexpansive maps by illuminating the unit ball (Q1650014)

Let \((V,\|\cdot\|)\) be a finite-dimensional normed space and \(f:V\to V\) be a nonexpansive mapping. As the main result of the present paper, the authors show that the following statements are equivalent: (1)~The set of fixed points \(\operatorname{Fix}(f)\) is nonempty and bounded. (2)~There exists a bounded open subset \(G\subset V\) such that \(x-f(x)\neq0\) for all \(x\in\partial G\) and \(\operatorname{deg}(\operatorname{id}-f,G,0)=1\). (3)~For every \(y\in V\setminus\{0\}\), there exist \(w\in V\) and \(\lambda>0\) such that \(w-f(w)=\lambda y\). (4)~There exist \(w_1\),\dots,\(w_m\) in \(V\) such that the set \(\{f(w_i)-w_i:i=1,\dots,m\}\) illuminates the unit ball \(B_1(0)\) (in the sense of \textit{V. Boltyanski} et al. [Excursions into combinatorial geometry. Berlin: Springer (1997; Zbl 0877.52001)]). (5)~There exists no horofunction \(h\) of \((V,\|\cdot\|)\) (in the sense of \textit{M. R. Bridson} and \textit{A. Haefliger} [Metric spaces of non-positive curvature. Berlin: Springer (1999; Zbl 0988.53001)]) such that \(h(f(x))\leq h(x)\) for all \(x\in V\). Criteria that can be verified computationally are discussed to check if a set illuminates the unit ball for a variety of norms. Applications of the main result to certain nonlinear eigenvalue problems from game theory and mathematical biology are presented. In particular, a nonlinear version of the Perron-Frobenius theorem is obtained. Finally, it is shown how illuminating sets can be used to place bounds on the location of the fixed point set of nonexpansive maps.