Cyclic projectors and separation theorems in idempotent convex geometry

Abstract

Semimodules over idempotent semirings like the max-plus or tropical semiring have much in common with convex cones. This analogy is particularly apparent in the case of subsemimodules of the n-fold Cartesian product of the max-plus semiring: It is known that one can separate a vector from a closed subsemimodule that does not contain it. Here we establish a more general separation theorem, which applies to any finite collection of closed subsemimodules with a trivial intersection. The proof of this theorem involves specific nonlinear operators, called here cyclic projectors on idempotent semimodules. These are analogues of the cyclic nearest-point projections known in convex analysis. We obtain a theorem that characterizes the spectrum of cyclic projectors on idempotent semimodules in terms of a suitable extension of Hilbert's projective metric. We also deduce as a corollary of our main results the idempotent analogue of Helly's theorem.