In this paper we study a system of variational inequalities where the operator is non-local, possibly degenerate and of second order. A special case of this type of problem occurs in the context of optimal switching problems when the dynamics of the underlying state variables is described by an N-dimensional Levy process. We establish a general comparison principle for viscosity sub- and supersolutions to the system under mild regularity, growth and structural assumptions on the data. Using the comparison principle we then prove the existence of a unique viscosity solution to the system by Perron's method. Our main contribution is that we establish existence and uniqueness of viscosity solutions, in the setting of Levy processes and non-local operators, with no sign assumption on the switching costs and allowing them to depend on x as well as t.
In this paper we consider feedback stabilization for parabolic variational inequalities of obstacle type with time and space depending reaction and convection coefficients and show exponential stabilization to nonstationary trajectories. Based on a Moreau-Yosida approximation, a feedback operator is established using a finite (and uniform in the approximation index) number of actuators leading to exponential decay of given rate of the state variable. Several numerical examples are presented addressing smooth and nonsmooth obstacle functions.
We analyze the asymptotic behavior for a system of fully nonlinear parabolic and elliptic quasi variational inequalities. These equations are related to robust switching control problems introduced in [3]. We prove that, as time horizon goes to infinity (resp. discount factor goes to zero) the long run average solution to the parabolic system (resp. the limiting discounted solution to the elliptic system) is characterized by a solution of a nonlinear system of ergodic variational inequalities. Our results hold under a dissipativity condition and without any non degeneracy assumption on the dif…
The benefits of transmission line switching are well-known in terms of reducing operational cost and improving system reliability of power systems. However, finding the optimal power network configuration is a challenging task due to the combinatorial nature of the underlying optimization problem. In this work, we identify a certain "node-based" set that appears as substructure of the optimal transmission switching problem and then conduct a polyhedral study of this set. We construct an extended formulation of the integer hull of this set and present the inequality description of the integer h…
This paper studies a system of $m$ variational inequalities with interconnected obstacles in infinite horizon associated to optimal multi-modes switching problems. Our main result is the existence and uniqueness of a continuous solution in viscosity sense, for that system. The proof of the main result strongly relies on the connection between the systems of variational inequalities and reflected backward stochastic differential equations (RBSDEs) with oblique reflection, which will be characterized through a Feynman-Kac's formula. The main feature of our system of infinite horizon RBSDEs is th…
In this paper we study the optimal m-states switching problem in finite horizon as well as infinite horizon with risk of default. We allow the switching cost functionals and cost of default to be of polynomial growth and arbitrary. We show uniqueness of a solution for a system of m variational partial differential inequalities with inter-connected obstacles. This system is the deterministic version of the Verification Theorem of the Markovian optimal m-states switching problem with risk of default. This problem is connected with the valuation of a power plant in the energy market.
We consider a quasi-variational inequality governed by a moving set. We employ the assumption that the movement of the set has a small Lipschitz constant. Under this requirement, we show that the quasi-variational inequality has a unique solution which depends Lipschitz-continuously on the source term. If the data of the problem is (directionally) differentiable, the solution map is directionally differentiable as well. We also study the optimal control of the quasi-variational inequality and provide necessary optimality conditions of strongly stationary type.
We analyse the problem of stability of a continuous time linear switching system (LSS) versus the stability of its Euler discretization. It is well-known that the existence of a positive τ for which the corresponding discrete time system with step size τ is stable implies the stability of LSS. Our main goal is to obtain a converse statement, that is, to estimate the discretization step size τ > 0 up to a given accuracy ε > 0. This leads to a method of deciding the stability of continuous time LSS with a guaranteed accuracy. As the first step, we solve this problem for matrices with real spectr…
Efficient computation of trajectories of switched affine systems becomes possible, if for any such hybrid system, we can manage to efficiently compute the sequence of switching times. Once the switching times have been computed, we can easily compute the trajectories between two successive switches as the solution of an affine ODE. Each switching time can be seen as a positive real root of an analytic function, thereby allowing for efficient computation by using root finding algorithms. These algorithms require a finite interval, within which to search for the switching time. In this paper, we…
It is well-known that optimizing network topology by switching on and off transmission lines improves the efficiency of power delivery in electrical networks. In fact, the USA Energy Policy Act of 2005 (Section 1223) states that the U.S. should "encourage, as appropriate, the deployment of advanced transmission technologies" including "optimized transmission line configurations". As such, many authors have studied the problem of determining an optimal set of transmission lines to switch off to minimize the cost of meeting a given power demand under the direct current (DC) model of power flow. …
We employ the viscosity solution technique to analyze optimal stopping problems with regime switching. Specifically, we obtain the viscosity property of value functions, the uniqueness of viscosity solutions, the regularity of value functions and the form of optimal stopping intervals. Finally, we provide an application of the results.
We consider quasi-variational inequalities (QVIs) with general non-local drivers and related systems of reflected backward stochastic differential equations (BSDEs) in a Brownian filtration. We show existence and uniqueness of viscosity solutions to the QVIs by first considering the standard (local) setting and then applying a contraction argument. In addition, the contraction argument yields existence and uniqueness of solutions to the related systems of reflected BSDEs and extends the theory of probabilistic representations of PDEs in terms of BSDEs to our specific setting.
We propose an approximation scheme for a class of semilinear variational inequalities whose Hamiltonian is convex and coercive. The proposed scheme is a natural extension of a previous splitting scheme proposed by Liang, Zariphopoulou and the author for semilinear parabolic PDEs. We establish the convergence of the scheme and determine the convergence rate by obtaining its error bounds. The bounds are obtained by Krylov's shaking coefficients technique and Barles-Jakobsen's optimal switching approximation, in which a key step is to introduce a variant switching system.
In this paper, a new class of hemivariational inequalities is introduced. It concerns Laplace operator on locally finite graphs together with multivalued nonmonotone nonlinearities expressed in terms of Clarke's subdifferential. First of all, we state and prove some results on the subdifferentiability of nonconvex functionals defined on graphs. Thereafter, an elliptic hemivariational inequality on locally finite graphs is considered and the existence and uniqueness of its weak solutions are proved by means of the well-known surjectivity result for pseudomonotone mappings. In the end of this pa…
In this paper, we introduce a class of variational inequalities, where the involved function is the sum of an arbitrary given vector and a homogeneous polynomial defined by a tensor; and we call it the tensor variational inequality (TVI). The TVI is a natural extension of the affine variational inequality and the tensor complementarity problem. We show that a class of multi-person noncooperative games can be formulated as a TVI. In particular, we investigate the global uniqueness and solvability of the TVI. To this end, we first introduce two classes of structured tensors and discuss some rela…
In this paper, an optimal switching problem is proposed for one-dimensional reflected backward stochastic differential equations (RBSDEs, for short) where the generators, the terminal values and the barriers are all switched with positive costs. The value process is characterized by a system of multi-dimensional RBSDEs with oblique reflection, whose existence and uniqueness are by no means trivial and are therefore carefully examined. Existence is shown using both methods of the Picard iteration and penalization, but under some different conditions. Uniqueness is proved by representation eithe…
For Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equations, with the standard definitions of viscosity super-solution and sub-solution, it is known that there is a comparison between any (viscosity) super-solutions and sub-solutions. This should be the same for HJB type quasi-variational inequalities (QVIs) arising from optimal impulse control problems. However, according to a natural adoption of the definition found in Barles 1985, Barles 1985b, the uniqueness of the viscosity solution could be guaranteed, but the comparison between viscosity super- and sub-solutions could not be guaranteed. This paper intr…
In this paper, we propose a direct solution method for optimal switching problems of one-dimensional diffusions. This method is free from conjectures about the form of the value function and switching strategies, or does not require the proof of optimality through quasi-variational inequalities. The direct method uses a general theory of optimal stopping problems for one-dimensional diffusions and characterizes the value function as sets of the smallest linear majorants in their respective transformed spaces.
General theorems for existence and uniqueness of viscosity solutions for Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman quasi-variational inequalities (HJBQVI) with integral term are established. Such nonlinear partial integro-differential equations (PIDE) arise in the study of combined impulse and stochastic control for jump-diffusion processes. The HJBQVI consists of an HJB part (for stochastic control) combined with a nonlocal impulse intervention term. Existence results are proved via stochastic means, whereas our uniqueness (comparison) results adapt techniques from viscosity solution theory. This paper is to o…
In this paper we show existence and uniqueness of a solution for a system of m variational partial differential inequalities with inter-connected obstacles. This system is the deterministic version of the Verification Theorem of the Markovian optimal m-states switching problem. The switching cost functions are arbitrary. This problem is in relation with the valuation of firms in a financial market.
We show the existence and uniqueness of a continuous viscosity solution of a system of partial differential equations (PDEs for short) without assuming the usual monotonicity conditions on the driver function as in Hamadène and Morlais's article \cite{hamadene2013viscosity}. Our method strongly relies on the link between PDEs and reflected backward stochastic differential equations with interconnected obstacles for which we already know that the solution exists and is unique for general drivers.
The goal of Optimal Transmission Switching (OTS) problem for power systems is to identify a topology of the power grid that minimizes the cost of the system operation while satisfying the operational and physical constraints. Among the most popular methods to solve OTS is to construct approximation via integer linear programming formulations, which often come with big-M inequalities. These big-M inequalities increase, considerably, the difficulty of solving the resulting formulations. Moreover, choosing big-M values optimally is as hard as solving OTS itself. In this paper, we devise two data-…
We consider the problem of optimal multiple switching in finite horizon, when the state of the system, including the switching costs, is a general adapted stochastic process. The problem is formulated as an extended impulse control problem and completely solved using probabilistic tools such as the Snell envelop of processes and reflected backward stochastic differential equations. Finally, when the state of the system is a Markov diffusion process, we show that the vector of value functions of the optimal problem is a viscosity solution to a system of variational inequalities with inter-conne…
We study the existence and uniqueness of solutions to the inverse quasi-variational inequality problem. Motivated by the neural network approach to solving optimization problems such as variational inequality, monotone inclusion, and inverse variational problems, we consider a neural network associated with the inverse quasi-variational inequality problem, and establish the existence and uniqueness of a solution to the proposed network. We prove that every trajectory of the proposed neural network converges to the unique solution of the inverse quasi-variational inequality problem and that the…
The Markov-Bernstein type inequalities between the norms of functions and of their derivatives are analysed for complex exponential polynomials. We establish a relation between the sharp constants in those inequalities and the stability problem for linear switching systems. In particular, the maximal discretization step is estimated. We prove the monotonicity of the sharp constants with respect to the exponents, provided those exponents are real. This gives asymptotically tight uniform bounds and the general form of the extremal polynomial. The case of complex exponent is left as an open probl…
We solve non-Markovian optimal switching problems in discrete time on an infinite horizon, when the decision maker is risk aware and the filtration is general, and establish existence and uniqueness of solutions for the associated reflected backward stochastic difference equations. An example application to hydropower planning is provided.
This paper proposes penalty schemes for a class of weakly coupled systems of Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman quasi-variational inequalities (HJBQVIs) arising from stochastic hybrid control problems of regime-switching models with both continuous and impulse controls. We show that the solutions of the penalized equations converge monotonically to those of the HJBQVIs. We further establish that the schemes are half-order accurate for HJBQVIs with Lipschitz coefficients, and first-order accurate for equations with more regular coefficients. Moreover, we construct the action regions and optimal impulse co…
This paper investigates a singular stochastic control problem for a multi-dimensional regime-switching diffusion process confined in an unbounded domain. The objective is to maximize the total expected discounted rewards from exerting the singular control. Such a formulation stems from application areas such as optimal harvesting multiple species and optimal dividends payments schemes in random environments. With the aid of weak dynamic programming principle and an exponential transformation, we characterize the value function to be the unique constrained viscosity solution of a certain system…
In this paper, we introduce and study a stochastic differential variational inequality (SDVI) which consists of a stochastic differential equation and a stochastic variational inequality. We obtain the existence and uniqueness of the solutions for SDVI by using the iteration method and Gronwall's inequality. Moreover, we show the convergence of Euler scheme for solving SDVI under some mild conditions. Finally, we apply the obtained results to solve the electrical circuits with diodes and the collapse of the bridge problems in stochastic environment.
This paper studies the problem of the deterministic version of the Verification Theorem for the optimal m-states switching in infinite horizon under Markovian framework with arbitrary switching cost functions. The problem is formulated as an extended impulse control problem and solved by means of probabilistic tools such as the Snell envelop of processes and reflected backward stochastic differential equations. A viscosity solutions approach is employed to carry out a finne analysis on the associated system of m variational inequalities with inter-connected obstacles. We show that the vector o…
We solve two stochastic control problems in which a player tries to minimize or maximize the exit time from an interval of a Brownian particle, by controlling its drift. The player can change from one drift to another but is subject to a switching cost. In each problem, the value function is written as the solution of a free boundary problem involving second order ordinary differential equations, in which the unknown boundaries are found by applying the principle of smooth fit. For both problems, we compute the value function, we exhibit the optimal strategy and we prove its generic uniqueness…
The overarching goal of this paper is to introduce and investigate a new nonlinear system driven by a nonlinear differential equation, a history-dependent quasivariational inequality, and a parabolic variational inequality in Banach spaces. Such a system can be used to model quasistatic frictional contact problems for viscoelastic materials with long memory, damage and wear. By using the Banach fixed point theorem, we prove an existence and uniqueness theorem of solution for such a system under some mild conditions. As a novel application, we obtain a unique solvability of a quasistatic viscoe…
We investigate the existence and uniqueness of (locally) absolutely continuous trajectories of a penalty term-based dynamical system associated to a constrained variational inequality expressed as a monotone inclusion problem. Relying on Lyapunov analysis and on the ergodic continuous version of the celebrated Opial Lemma we prove weak ergodic convergence of the orbits to a solution of the constrained variational inequality under investigation. If one of the operators involved satisfies stronger monotonicity properties, then strong convergence of the trajectories can be shown.
We study optimal behavior of energy producers under a CO_2 emission abatement program. We focus on a two-player discrete-time model where each producer is sequentially optimizing her emission and production schedules. The game-theoretic aspect is captured through a reduced-form price-impact model for the CO_2 allowance price. Such duopolistic competition results in a new type of a non-zero-sum stochastic switching game on finite horizon. Existence of game Nash equilibria is established through generalization to randomized switching strategies. No uniqueness is possible and we therefore conside…
We characterize and compute the maximal admissible positively invariant set for asymptotically stable constrained switching linear systems. Motivated by practical problems found, e.g., in obstacle avoidance, power electronics and nonlinear switching systems, in our setting the constraint set is formed by a finite number of polynomial inequalities. First, we observe that the so-called Veronese lifting allows to represent the constraint set as a polyhedral set. Next, by exploiting the fact that the lifted system dynamics remains linear, we establish a method based on reachability computations to…
This paper is concerned with a stochastic linear-quadratic optimal control problem with regime switching, random coefficients, and cone control constraint. The randomness of the coefficients comes from two aspects: the Brownian motion and the Markov chain. Using Itô's lemma for Markov chain, we obtain the optimal state feedback control and optimal cost value explicitly via two new systems of extended stochastic Riccati equations (ESREs). We prove the existence and uniqueness of the two ESREs using tools including multidimensional comparison theorem, truncation function technique, log transform…
We present a novel penalty approach for a class of quasi-variational inequalities (QVIs) involving monotone systems and interconnected obstacles. We show that for any given positive switching cost, the solutions of the penalized equations converge monotonically to those of the QVIs. We estimate the penalization errors and are able to deduce that the optimal switching regions are constructed exactly. We further demonstrate that as the switching cost tends to zero, the QVI degenerates into an equation of HJB type, which is approximated by the penalized equation at the same order (up to a log fac…
