Global optimization on Stiefel manifolds – an interesting result of discretization

Optimizations problems on Stiefel manifolds have been discussed recently in some papers of Rapcsák, together with references to several theoretical and application (e.g. statistical) consequences. Now, a special discretization of the studied problem is introduced and investigated that is posed as an equivalent case of the assignment problem. It is interesting in itself, but some examples and numerical results may provide additional motivation.