Nonlinear Separation Approach to Constrained Extremum Problems

In this paper, by virtue of a nonlinear scalarization function, two nonlinear weak separation functions, a nonlinear regular weak separation function, and a nonlinear strong separation function are first introduced, respectively. Then, by the image space analysis, a global saddle‐point condition for a nonlinear function is investigated. It is shown that the existence of a saddle point is equivalent to a nonlinear separation of two suitable subsets of the image space. Finally, some necessary and sufficient optimality conditions are obtained for constrained extremum problems.