A Bounded Degree SOS Plus SONC Hierarchy for Polynomial Optimization

Abstract: We propose a bounded degree SOS+SONC hierarchy for constrained polynomial optimization, termed B-SOS+SONC. Starting from Lasserre's bounded-degree SOS framework, we enlarge the certificate cone from SOS to the recently introduced SOS+SONC cone, thereby combining the algebraic strength of semidefinite relaxations with the sparse structure captured by circuit polynomials. We show that, for each fixed certificate degree, the resulting hierarchy is complete, that is, its optimal values are monotone and converge to the global optimum. Moreover, we derive an explicit SDP-REP reformulation, so that each relaxation can be solved within a tractable convex optimization framework over semidefinite and relative entropy cones. Beyond the optimization hierarchy itself, we investigate structural properties of the SONC cone and introduce the notions of first-order and second-order SONC-convexity. This leads to a new sufficient condition for first-level exactness of the B-SOS+SONC hierarchy. Numerical experiments illustrate that the proposed hierarchy often yields tighter lower bounds than the B-SOS relaxation while remaining tractable.