Conic optimization is a subfield of convex optimization that studies problems consisting of minimizing a convex function over the intersection of an affine subspace and a convex cone.
The class of conic optimization problems includes some of the most well known classes of convex optimization problems, namely linear and semidefinite programming.
Given a real vector space X, a convex, real-valued function
defined on a convex cone [math]\displaystyle{ C \subset X }[/math], and an affine subspace [math]\displaystyle{ \mathcal{H} }[/math] defined by a set of affine constraints [math]\displaystyle{ h_i(x) = 0 \ }[/math], a conic optimization problem is to find the point [math]\displaystyle{ x }[/math] in [math]\displaystyle{ C \cap \mathcal{H} }[/math] for which the number [math]\displaystyle{ f(x) }[/math] is smallest.
Examples of [math]\displaystyle{ C }[/math] include the positive orthant [math]\displaystyle{ \mathbb{R}_+^n = \left\{ x \in \mathbb{R}^n : \, x \geq \mathbf{0}\right\} }[/math], positive semidefinite matrices [math]\displaystyle{ \mathbb{S}^n_{+} }[/math], and the second-order cone [math]\displaystyle{ \left \{ (x,t) \in \mathbb{R}^{n}\times \mathbb{R} : \lVert x \rVert \leq t \right \} }[/math]. Often [math]\displaystyle{ f \ }[/math] is a linear function, in which case the conic optimization problem reduces to a linear program, a semidefinite program, and a second order cone program, respectively.
Certain special cases of conic optimization problems have notable closed-form expressions of their dual problems.
The dual of the conic linear program
is
where [math]\displaystyle{ C^* }[/math] denotes the dual cone of [math]\displaystyle{ C \ }[/math].
Whilst weak duality holds in conic linear programming, strong duality does not necessarily hold.[1]
The dual of a semidefinite program in inequality form
is given by
Original source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conic optimization.
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