P-distances, q-distances and a generalized Ekeland’s variational principle in uniform spaces

Abstract

In this paper, we attempt to give a unified approach to the existing several versions of Ekeland’s variational principle. In the framework of uniform spaces, we introduce p-distances and more generally, q-distances. Then we introduce a new type of completeness for uniform spaces, i.e., sequential completeness with respect to a q-distance (particularly, a p-distance), which is a very extensive concept of completeness. By using q-distances and the new type of completeness, we prove a generalized Takahashi’s nonconvex minimization theorem, a generalized Ekeland’s variational principle and a generalized Caristi’s fixed point theorem. Moreover, we show that the above three theorems are equivalent to each other. From the generalized Ekeland’s variational principle, we deduce a number of particular versions of Ekeland’s principle, which include many known versions of the principle and their improvements.