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Local Minima and Convergence in Low-Rank Semidefinite Programming

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Abstract.

The low-rank semidefinite programming problem LRSDP r is a restriction of the semidefinite programming problem SDP in which a bound r is imposed on the rank of X, and it is well known that LRSDP r is equivalent to SDP if r is not too small. In this paper, we classify the local minima of LRSDP r and prove the optimal convergence of a slight variant of the successful, yet experimental, algorithm of Burer and Monteiro [5], which handles LRSDP r via the nonconvex change of variables X=RRT. In addition, for particular problem classes, we describe a practical technique for obtaining lower bounds on the optimal solution value during the execution of the algorithm. Computational results are presented on a set of combinatorial optimization relaxations, including some of the largest quadratic assignment SDPs solved to date.

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Correspondence to Samuel Burer.

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This author was supported in part by NSF Grant CCR-0203426.

This author was supported in part by NSF Grants CCR-0203113 and INT-9910084 and ONR grant N00014-03-1-0401.

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Burer, S., Monteiro, R. Local Minima and Convergence in Low-Rank Semidefinite Programming. Math. Program. 103, 427–444 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10107-004-0564-1

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