Topological Approach to Mathematical Programs with Switching Constraints

Abstract

We study mathematical programs with switching constraints (for short, MPSC) from the topological perspective. Two basic theorems from Morse theory are proved. Outside the W-stationary point set, continuous deformation of lower level sets can be performed. However, when passing a W-stationary level, the topology of the lower level set changes via the attachment of a w-dimensional cell. The dimension w equals the W-index of the nondegenerate W-stationary point. The W-index depends on both the number of negative eigenvalues of the restricted Lagrangian’s Hessian and the number of bi-active switching constraints. As a consequence, we show the mountain pass theorem for MPSC. Additionally, we address the question if the assumption on the nondegeneracy of W-stationary points is too restrictive in the context of MPSC. It turns out that all W-stationary points are generically nondegenerate. Besides, we examine the gap between nondegeneracy and strong stability of W-stationary points. A complete characterization of strong stability for W-stationary points by means of first and second order information of the MPSC defining functions under linear independence constraint qualification is provided. In particular, no bi-active Lagrange multipliers of a strongly stable W-stationary point can vanish.