A new globalization technique for nonlinear conjugate gradient methods for nonconvex minimization

It is well-known that the HS method and the PRP method may not converge for nonconvex optimization even with exact line search. Some globalization techniques have been proposed, for instance, the PRP+ globalization technique and the Grippo-Lucidi globalization technique for the PRP method. In this paper, we propose a new efficient globalization technique for general nonlinear conjugate gradient methods for nonconvex minimization. This new technique utilizes the information of the previous search direction sufficiently. Under suitable conditions, we prove that the nonlinear conjugate gradient methods with this new technique are globally convergent for nonconvex minimization if the line search satisfies Wolfe conditions or Armijo condition. Extensive numerical experiments are reported to show the efficiency of the proposed technique. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.