A One-Factorization Predictor-Corrector Long-Step Arc-Search Method and a Curvature-Amplified Variant for Semidefinite Programming with a Homogeneous Self-Dual Embedding

Abstract

In a predictor-corrector arc-search method, a point on the predictor arc is first selected and a corrector is then computed at that point. Since the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) matrix changes with the selected point, this correction may require a second factorization in each iteration. We propose a one-factorization arc-search method (OFAS) for semidefinite programming (SDP) that avoids this second factorization, retains the corrector after the arc step, and uses only one KKT factorization per iteration. The key is a three-term decomposition of the complementarity mismatch at the selected point on the arc, which allows the correction to be assembled from linear-system solutions using the factorization at the current iterate. We also propose a curvature-amplified variant (CA-OFAS) that amplifies the second-order arc term. The proposed methods are formulated with a homogeneous self-dual embedding. For a wide long-step neighborhood, we prove that both methods reduce the homogeneous complementarity and residuals below $\varepsilon$ in $O(n \log(1/\varepsilon))$ iterations for an $n$-by-$n$ SDP matrix variable. Numerical experiments show that the one-factorization structure and the correction after the arc step are associated with reductions in computation time. Compared with the Mehrotra-type method, CA-OFAS reduces the geometric-mean computation time by 17% on SDPLIB and 13% on neural network verification SDP problems.