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Related papers: The Complexity of Constrained Min-Max Optimization

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Constrained non-convex optimization is fundamentally challenging, as global solutions are generally intractable and constraint qualifications may not hold. However, in many applications, including safe policy optimization in control and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-11-14 Ilyas Fatkhullin , Niao He , Guanghui Lan , Florian Wolf

This paper studies the complexity of finding approximate stationary points for the smooth nonconvex-strongly-concave (NC-SC) saddle point problem: $\min_x\max_yf(x,y)$. Under the standard first-order smoothness conditions where $f$ is…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-12-10 Nuozhou Wang , Junyu Zhang , Shuzhong Zhang

We initiate the study of nonsmooth optimization problems under bounded local subgradient variation, which postulates bounded difference between (sub)gradients in small local regions around points, in either average or maximum sense. The…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-11-05 Jelena Diakonikolas , Cristóbal Guzmán

We study the computational complexity of the problem of computing local min-max equilibria of games with a nonconvex-nonconcave utility function $f$. From the work of Daskalakis, Skoulakis, and Zampetakis [DSZ21], this problem was known to…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2026-02-05 Martino Bernasconi , Matteo Castiglioni

The main challenge of nonconvex optimization is to find a global optimum, or at least to avoid ``bad'' local minima and meaningless stationary points. We study here the extent to which algorithms, as opposed to optimization models and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-02-27 Thi Lan Dinh , Wiebke Bennecke , G. S. Matthijs Jansen , D. Russell Luke , Stefan Mathias

We study the query complexity of min-max optimization of a nonconvex-nonconcave function $f$ over $[0,1]^d \times [0,1]^d$. We show that, given oracle access to $f$ and to its gradient $\nabla f$, any algorithm that finds an…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2026-05-14 Martino Bernasconi , Matteo Castiglioni , Andrea Celli , Alexandros Hollender

We investigate the computational complexity of min-max optimization under coupled constraints. The work of Daskalakis, Skoulakis, and Zampetakis [DSZ21] was the first to study min-max optimization through the lens of computational…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-05-28 Martino Bernasconi , Matteo Castiglioni , Andrea Celli , Gabriele Farina

We consider the problem of finding local minimizers in non-convex and non-smooth optimization. Under the assumption of strict saddle points, positive results have been derived for first-order methods. We present the first known results for…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-08-13 Zhishen Huang , Stephen Becker

We study a class of nonconvex-nonconcave minimax problems in which the inner maximization problem satisfies a local Kurdyka-Lojasiewicz (KL) condition that may vary with the outer minimization variable. In contrast to the global KL or…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-05-20 Zhaosong Lu , Xiangyuan Wang

In this paper, an inexact proximal-point penalty method is studied for constrained optimization problems, where the objective function is non-convex, and the constraint functions can also be non-convex. The proposed method approximately…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-12-02 Qihang Lin , Runchao Ma , Yangyang Xu

In this paper, we present several new results on minimizing a nonsmooth and nonconvex function under a Lipschitz condition. Recent work shows that while the classical notion of Clarke stationarity is computationally intractable up to some…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-11-08 Michael I. Jordan , Tianyi Lin , Manolis Zampetakis

We provide improved convergence rates for constrained convex-concave min-max problems and monotone variational inequalities with higher-order smoothness. In min-max settings where the $p^{th}$-order derivatives are Lipschitz continuous, we…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-07-10 Brian Bullins , Kevin A. Lai

This paper studies first order methods for solving smooth minimax optimization problems $\min_x \max_y g(x,y)$ where $g(\cdot,\cdot)$ is smooth and $g(x,\cdot)$ is concave for each $x$. In terms of $g(\cdot,y)$, we consider two settings --…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-07-03 Kiran Koshy Thekumparampil , Prateek Jain , Praneeth Netrapalli , Sewoong Oh

Min-max optimization problems involving nonconvex-nonconcave objectives have found important applications in adversarial training and other multi-agent learning settings. Yet, no known gradient descent-based method is guaranteed to converge…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-19 Constantinos Daskalakis , Noah Golowich , Stratis Skoulakis , Manolis Zampetakis

This paper studies the complexity for finding approximate stationary points of nonconvex-strongly-concave (NC-SC) smooth minimax problems, in both general and averaged smooth finite-sum settings. We establish nontrivial lower complexity…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-03-31 Siqi Zhang , Junchi Yang , Cristóbal Guzmán , Negar Kiyavash , Niao He

Motivated by recent increased interest in optimization algorithms for non-convex optimization in application to training deep neural networks and other optimization problems in data analysis, we give an overview of recent theoretical…

It is well-known that given a smooth, bounded-from-below, and possibly nonconvex function, standard gradient-based methods can find $\epsilon$-stationary points (with gradient norm less than $\epsilon$) in $\mathcal{O}(1/\epsilon^2)$…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-10-28 Guy Kornowski , Ohad Shamir

In this paper, we consider a class of constrained multiobjective optimization problems, where each objective function can be expressed by adding a possibly nonsmooth nonconvex function and a differentiable function with Lipschitz continuous…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-01-01 Nguyen Van Tuyen , Minh N. Dao , Tran Van Nghi

We provide sharp worst-case evaluation complexity bounds for nonconvex minimization problems with general inexpensive constraints, i.e.\ problems where the cost of evaluating/enforcing of the (possibly nonconvex or even disconnected)…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-05-31 Coralia Cartis , Nick I. M. Gould , Philippe L. Toint

This paper considers stochastic first-order algorithms for convex-concave minimax problems of the form $\min_{\bf x}\max_{\bf y}f(\bf x, \bf y)$, where $f$ can be presented by the average of $n$ individual components which are $L$-average…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-02-01 Luo Luo , Guangzeng Xie , Tong Zhang , Zhihua Zhang