A Multiplicative Barrier Function Method for Linear Programming

A simple Newton-like descent algorithm for linear programming is proposed together with results of preliminary computational experiments on small- and medium-size problems. The proposed algorithm gives local superlinear convergence to the optimum and, experimentally, shows global linear convergence. It is similar to Karmarkar's algorithm in that it is an interior feasible direction method and self-correcting, while it is quite different from Karmarkar's in that it gives superlinear convergence and that no artificial extra constraint is introduced nor is projective geometry needed, but only affine geometry suffices.