Augmented Lagrangian duality and nondifferentiable optimization methods in nonconvex programming

In this paper we present augmented Lagrangians for nonconvex minimization problems with equality constraints. We construct a dual problem with respect to the presented here Lagrangian, give the saddle point optimality conditions and obtain strong duality results. We use these results and modify the subgradient and cutting plane methods for solving the dual problem constructed. Algorithms proposed in this paper have some advantages. We do not use any convexity and differentiability conditions, and show that the dual problem is always concave regardless of properties the primal problem satisfies. The subgradient of the dual function along which its value increases is calculated without solving any additional problem. In contrast with the penalty or multiplier methods, for improving the value of the dual function, one need not to take the `penalty like parameter' to infinity in the new methods. In both methods the value of the dual function strongly increases at each iteration. In the contrast, by using the primal-dual gap, the proposed algorithms possess a natural stopping criteria. The convergence theorem for the subgradient method is also presented.