Convexification of box-constrained polynomial optimization problems via monomial patterns

Abstract: Convexification is a core technique in global polynomial optimization. Currently, there are two main approaches competing in theory and practice: the approach of nonlinear programming and the approach based on positivity certificates from real algebra. The former are comparatively cheap from a computational point of view, but typically do not provide tight relaxations with respect to bounds for the original problem. The latter are typically computationally expensive, but do provide tight relaxations. We embed both kinds of approaches into a unified framework of monomial relaxations. We develop a convexification strategy that allows to trade off the quality of the bounds against computational expenses. Computational experiments show very encouraging results.