Nonnegativity of signomials with Newton simplex over convex sets

Abstract: We study a class of signomials whose positive support is the set of vertices of a simplex and which may have multiple negative support points in the simplex. Various groups of authors have provided an exact characterization for the global nonnegativity of a signomial in this class in terms of circuit signomials and that characterization provides a tractable nonnegativity test. We generalize this characterization to the constrained nonnegativity over a convex set $X$. This provides a tractable $X$-nonnegativity test for the class in terms of relative entropy programming and in terms of the support function of $X$. Our proof methods rely on the convex cone of constrained SAGE signomials (sums of arithmetic-geometric exponentials) and the duality theory of this cone.