On reduction of exhausters via a support function representation

Exhausters are families of compact, convex sets which provide minmax or maxmin representations of positively homogeneous functions and they are efficient tools for the study of nonsmooth functions (Demyanov in Optimization 45:13–29, 1999). Upper and lower exhausters of positively homogeneous functions are employed to describe optimality conditions in geometric terms and also to find directions of steepest descent or ascent. Since an upper/lower exhauster may contain finitely or infinitely many compact convex sets, the problem of minimality and reduction of exhausters naturally arise. There are several approaches to reduce exhausters (Abbasov in J Glob Optim 74(4):737–751, 2019; Grzybowski et al. in J Glob Optim 46(4):589–601, 2010; Küçük et al. in J Optim Theory Appl 165:693–707, 2015; Roshchina in J Optim Theory Appl 136:261–273, 2008; J Convex Anal 15(4):859–868, 2008). In this study, in the sense of inclusion-minimality, some reduction techniques for upper exhausters of positively homogeneous functions defined from $$\mathbb {R}^2$$ R 2 to $$\mathbb {R}$$ R is proposed by means of a representation of support functions. These techniques have concrete geometric meanings and they form a basis for a necessary and sufficient condition for inclusion-minimality of exhausters. Some examples are presented to illustrate each reduction technique.