On Minimizing Some Merit Functions for Nonlinear Complementarity Problems under <Emphasis Type="Italic">H</Emphasis>-Differentiability

In this paper, we describe the H-differentials of some well known NCP functions and their merit functions. We show how, under appropriate conditions on an H-differential of f, minimizing a merit function corresponding to f leads to a solution of the nonlinear complementarity problem. Our results give a unified treatment of such results for C ¹-functions, semismooth-functions, and locally Lipschitzian functions. Illustrations are given to show the usefulness of our results. We present also a result on the global convergence of a derivative-free descent algorithm for solving the nonlinear complementarity problem. The first author is deeply indebted to Professor M. Seetharama Gowda for his numerous helpful suggestions and encouragement. Special thanks to Professor J.-P. Crouzeix and an anonymous referees for their constructive suggestions which led to numerous improvements in the paper. The research of the first author was supported in part by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and Scholar Activity Grant of Thompson Rivers University. The research of the second author was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.