English

Curves of Descent

Optimization and Control 2013-05-08 v2

Abstract

Steepest descent is central in variational mathematics. We present a new transparent existence proof for curves of near-maximal slope --- an influential notion of steepest descent in a nonsmooth setting. We moreover show that for semi-algebraic functions --- prototypical nonpathological functions in nonsmooth optimization --- such curves are precisely the solutions of subgradient dynamical systems.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1212.1231,
  title  = {Curves of Descent},
  author = {D. Drusvyatskiy and A. D. Ioffe and A. S. Lewis},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1212.1231},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

23 pages, 1 figure