Convergence of the steepest descent method for minimizing quasiconvex functions

To minimize a continuously differentiable quasiconvex functionf: ⁿ , Armijo's steepest descent method generates a sequencex ^k+1 =x ^k –t _k f(x ^k ), wheret _k >0. We establish strong convergence properties of this classic method: either , s.t. ; or arg minf = , x ^k andf(x ^k ) inff. We also discuss extensions to other line searches.The research of the first author was supported by the Polish Academy of Sciences. The second author acknowledges the support of the Department of Industrial Engineering, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.We wish to thank two anonymous referees for their valuable comments. In particular, one referee has suggested the use of quasiconvexity instead of convexity off.