Proximal Averages for Minimization of Entropy Functionals

In their 2016 article `Meetings with Lambert $\mathcal{W}$ and Other Special Functions in Optimization and Analysis', Borwein and Lindstrom considered the minimization of an entropy functional utilizing the weighted average of the negative Boltzmann--Shannon entropy $x\mapsto x\log x -x$ and the energy $x \mapsto x^2/2$; the solution employed the Fenchel-Moreau conjugate of the sum. However, in place of a traditional arithmetic average of two convex functions, it is also, perhaps even more, natural to use their proximal average. We explain the advantages and illustrate them by computing the analogous proximal averages for the negative entropy and energy. We use the proximal averages to solve entropy functional minimization problems similar to those considered by Borwein and Lindstrom, illustrating the benefits of using a true homotopy. Through experimentation, we discover computational barriers to obtaining solutions when computing with proximal averages, and we demonstrate a method which appears to remedy them.