Criticality of Lagrange Multipliers in Variational Systems

The paper concerns the study of criticality of Lagrange multipliers in variational systems that has been recognized in both theoretical and numerical aspects of optimization and variational analysis. In contrast to the previous developments dealing with polyhedral KKT systems and the like, we now focus on general nonpolyhedral systems that are associated, in particular, with problems of conic programming. Developing a novel approach, which is mainly based on advanced techniques and tools of second-order variational analysis and generalized differentiation, allows us to overcome principal challenges of nonpolyhedrality and to establish complete characterizations on noncritical multipliers in such settings. The obtained results are illustrated by examples from semidefinite programming.