Spectral Methods for Polynomial Optimization

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Moreno, Elvira, Chandrasekaran, Venkat
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866912496506372096
author Moreno, Elvira
Chandrasekaran, Venkat
author_facet Moreno, Elvira
Chandrasekaran, Venkat
contents We present a hierarchy of tractable relaxations to obtain lower bounds on the minimum value of a polynomial over a constraint set defined by polynomial equations. In contrast to previous convex relaxation techniques for this problem, our method is based on computing the smallest generalized eigenvalue of a pair of matrices derived from the problem data, which can be accomplished for large problem instances using off-the-shelf software. We characterize the algebraic structure in a problem that facilitates the application of our framework, and we observe that our method is applicable for all polynomial optimization problems with bounded constraint sets. Our construction also yields a nested sequence of structured convex outer approximations of a bounded algebraic variety with the property that linear optimization over each approximation reduces to an eigenvalue computation. Finally, we present numerical experiments on representative problems in which we demonstrate the scalability of our approach compared to convex relaxation methods derived from sums-of-squares certificates of nonnegativity.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_16272
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Spectral Methods for Polynomial Optimization
Moreno, Elvira
Chandrasekaran, Venkat
Optimization and Control
We present a hierarchy of tractable relaxations to obtain lower bounds on the minimum value of a polynomial over a constraint set defined by polynomial equations. In contrast to previous convex relaxation techniques for this problem, our method is based on computing the smallest generalized eigenvalue of a pair of matrices derived from the problem data, which can be accomplished for large problem instances using off-the-shelf software. We characterize the algebraic structure in a problem that facilitates the application of our framework, and we observe that our method is applicable for all polynomial optimization problems with bounded constraint sets. Our construction also yields a nested sequence of structured convex outer approximations of a bounded algebraic variety with the property that linear optimization over each approximation reduces to an eigenvalue computation. Finally, we present numerical experiments on representative problems in which we demonstrate the scalability of our approach compared to convex relaxation methods derived from sums-of-squares certificates of nonnegativity.
title Spectral Methods for Polynomial Optimization
topic Optimization and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.16272