Dini derivative and a characterization for Lipschitz and convex functions on Riemannian manifolds (Q2474825)

The aim of the paper is to obtain some characterizations of locally Lipschitz and convex functions defined on finite-dimensional, smooth, complete Riemannian manifold, \((M,\langle.,.\rangle)\), in terms of the so called lower Dini derivatives defined by: \[ f'(p,v):=\liminf_{t\to 0^+}{{f(\gamma(t))-f(p)}\over{t}}, \quad p\in M, \;v\in T_pM \] where \(\gamma(.):\mathbb R\to M\) is a geodesic such that \(\gamma(0)=p\), \(\gamma'(0)=v\). The first main result is proved in Theorem 1, according to which, if \(U\subset M\) is open and convex then \(f(.)\) is Lipschitz on \(U\) of rank \(L\geq 0\) iff \(| f'(p,v)| \leq L\| v\| \;\forall \;p\in U, \;v\in T_pM.\) Secondly, in Theorem 2 it is proved that \(f(.)\) is convex iff \(f'(.,.)\) is monotone in the sense that for any minimal geodesic, \(\gamma(.):[a,b]\to M\), with the end-points in \(\text{dom}(f)\), the real function \(\varphi_\gamma(t):= f'(\gamma(t),\gamma'(t))\) is monotone. As an application, in Proposition 4 it is proved that if \(C\subset M\) is convex and the function \(f(.)\) is convex on \(C\) then the point \(p^*\in C\) is a solution of the mathematical programming problem \[ f(p^*)=\min_{p\in C}f(p) \] provided \(f'(p^*,\gamma'_{p^*,p}(0))\geq 0\) for any point \(p\in C\) and any minimal geodesic, \(\gamma_{p^*,p}(.),\) satisfying \(\gamma_{p^*,p}(0)=p^*\), \(\gamma_{p^*,p}(1)=p.\)