Solving constrained optimization problems without Lagrange multipliers (2003.06901v3)

Abstract: Constrained optimization problems exist in many domains of science, such as thermodynamics, mechanics, economics, etc. These problems are classically solved with the help of the Lagrange multipliers and the Lagrangian function. However, the disadvantage of this approach is that it artificially increases the dimensionality of the problem. Here, we show that the determinant of the Jacobian of the problem (function to optimize and constraints) is null. This extra equation transforms any equality-constrained optimization problem into a solving problem of same dimension. We also introduced the constraint matrices as the largest square submatrices of the Jacobian of the constraints. The boundaries of the constraint domain are given by the nullity of their determinants. The constraint matrices also permit to write the function to be optimized as a Taylor series of any of its variable, with its coefficients algebraically determined by an iterative process of partial derivation.