A New Sequential Optimality Condition of Cardinality-Constrained Optimization Problems and Application

Abstract: In this paper, we consider the cardinality-constrained optimization problems and propose a new sequential optimality condition for the continuous relaxation reformulation which is popular recently. It is stronger than the existing results and is still a first-order necessity condition for the cardinality constraint problems without any additional assumptions. Meanwhile, we provide a problem-tailored weaker constraint qualification, which can guarantee that new sequential conditions are Mordukhovich-type stationary points. On the other hand, we improve the theoretical results of the augmented Lagrangian algorithm. Under the same condition as the existing results, we prove that any feasible accumulation point of the iterative sequence generated by the algorithm satisfies the new sequence optimality condition. Furthermore, the algorithm can converge to the Mordukhovich-type (essentially strong) stationary point if the problem-tailored constraint qualification is satisfied.