Saddle-Point Optimality: A Look Beyond Convexity

The fact that two disjoint convex sets can be separated by a plane has a tremendous impact on optimization theory and its applications. We begin the paper by illustrating this fact in convex and partly convex programming. Then we look beyond convexity and study general nonlinear programs with twice continuously differentiable functions. Using a parametric extension of the Liu-Floudas transformation, we show that every such program can be identified as a relatively simple structurally stable convex model. This means that one can study general nonlinear programs with twice continuously differentiable functions using only linear programming, convex programming, and the inter-relationship between the two. In particular, it follows that globally optimal solutions of such general programs are the limit points of optimal solutions of convex programs.