Let $S =\{x\in \re^n:\, g_1(x)\geq 0, \cdots, g_m(x)\geq 0\}$ be a semialgebraic set defined by multivariate polynomials $g_i(x)$. Assume $S$ is convex, compact and has nonempty interior. Let $S_i =\{x\in \re^n:\, g_i(x)\geq 0\}$, and $\bdS$ (resp. $\bdS_i$) be the boundary of $S$ (resp. $S_i$). This paper, as does the subject of semidefinite programming (SDP), concerns Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs). The set $S$ is said to have an LMI representation if it equals the set of solutions to some LMI and it is known that some convex $S$ may not be LMI representable \cite{HV}. A question arising from \cite{NN94}, see \cite{HV,N06}, is: given a subset $S$ of $\re^n$, does there exist an LMI representable set $\hS$ in some higher dimensional space $ \re^{n+N}$ whose iprojection down onto $\re^n$ equals $S$. Such $S$ is called semidefinite representable or SDP representable. This paper addresses the SDP representability problem. The following are the main contributions of this paper: {\bf (i)} Assume $g_i(x)$ are all concave on $S$. If the positive definite Lagrange Hessian (PDLH) condition holds, i.e., the Hessian of the Lagrange function for optimization problem of minimizing any nonzero linear function $\ell^Tx$ on $S$ is positive definite at the minimizer, then $S$ is SDP representable. {\bf (ii)} If each $g_i(x)$ is either sos-concave ($-\nabla^2g_i(x)=W(x)^TW(x)$ for some possibly nonsquare matrix polynomial $W(x)$) or strictly quasi-concave on $S$, then $S$ is SDP representable. {\bf (iii)} If each $S_i$ is either sos-convex or poscurv-convex ($S_i$ is compact convex, whose boundary has positive curvature and is nonsingular, i.e. $\nabla g_i(x) \not = 0$ on $\bdS_i \cap S$), then $S$ is SDP representable. This also holds for $S_i$ for which $\bdS_i \cap S$ extends smoothly to the boundary of a poscurv-convex set containing $S$. {\bf (iv)} We give the complexity of Schm\"{u}dgen and Putinar's matrix Positivstellensatz, which are critical to the proofs of (i)-(iii).
Citation
http://www.arxiv.org/abs/0705.4068